.0 



EGG MONEY 

HOW TO INCREASE IT 



A Book of Complete and Reliable Information 
on the More Profitable Production of 
Eggs on the City Lot, the Vil- 
lage Acre and the Farm. 



BY H. A. NOURSE 
and Twenty-four Other Successful Poultrymen. 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 

r 



Price Twenty-five Cents 



WEBB PUBLISHING COMPANY 

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA 



* LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooles Received 

OCT T »30f 

Copyright Entry 

ClAst-A XXc, No, 
COPY B. 



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Copyright, 1907. 

WEBB PUBLISHING CO. ; 

St. Paul, Minn. 



EGG MONEY 

INTRODUCTION. 

The production of eggs to be consumed as food has been 
is and probably always will be the mainstay of the poultry 
ndusfry The 7 fane/ poultry business, or the breeding of 
fowls primarily for exhibition, interests but a small- per 
cSVlTtotll number of poultry keepers ; the Wjto 
of poultry meat, as a separate branch of he industry s 
comparatively small— the greater part of the immense 
suX that finds its way to market annually is furnished 
bvXse who make the rearing of it secondary, or mcidental 

t0 ^SpScf^agricultural or animal industry is 
there a more stable demand, year in yea. : out, than for 
this product of the domestic hen. Within the past iew 
vtrs the number marketed and consumed has increased 
tomendously; yet the prices have increased also proving 
SS is more than keeping pace with the supply, 
and indicatrg very positively that the business will not be 
ovfraonelr LIome P unprofitable, certainly not during the 

iifet r w °!it ssf rasa chapters, «. ^ Tl 

required s neither extensive nor costly; no one breed or 
variety of fowls is pre-eminently superior for the purpose, 
he main requirements are knowledge of how to conduct the 
business and willingness to attend faithfully to the : wori. 

The production of eggs is profitable. No legitimate 
department of agricultural industry offers richer returns 
on'equalcapital invested to those who work ^^ 
understanding^ . When prices are lowesi in ^ the summer 
months, there is an opportunity for a fair profit < n the 
cost of production; when prices reach twenty thirty and 
fortv cents a dozen in the open market, as they do in eariy 
wSter the poultryman whose flock is presenting him a 
toSA&d pocket a one hundred per cent profi on 
the cost of production, as pay for his labor. A special 



6 EGG MONEY 

trade with families, clubs or ultra highclass hotels some- 
times secures a standing price of fifty cents or more per 
dozen for eggs of choice quality delivered regularly and in 
stated numbers. 

Under ordinary circumstances and conditions, with the 
cost of foods and prices of eggs about the average for the 
United States, profits of one dollar to two dollars per hen 
have been realized by those who make eggs the main feature 
but do not neglect to profit by the sale of what may be called 
the incidental products, as, the surplus males, the discarded 
layers and the poultry manure. Under specially favorable 
conditions of location, market, etc., greater profits have 
been made and are made today. The keeper of a small 
flock usually makes the greatest profit on each fowl, for a 
considerable part of the cost of maintenance is saved by 
substituting table scraps and kitchen waste for much of 
the grain, beef scraps, etc., that must otherwise be bought 
and paid for. The farmer's flock can be fed for a very small 
money outlay, especially in summer when fifty hens will obtain 
most of their living if allowed to range over the average 
farm. The exclusive poultry keeper finds the cost of sup- 
porting his fowls heaviest for he almost invariably buys 
all the food stuffs; yet his profits are satisfactory if his 
methods are right. 

It is our purpose to present in this book such information 
as may be followed with success by the city back-lot poultry 
keeper with a dozen fowls, the village mechanic with his 
half-acre to devote to the production of eggs, the farmer 
with his barnyard flock, or the exclusive poultry raiser 
who depends upon the difference between income and 
expenditure to pay the grocer and the clothier and provide 
the means to educate his children. It is a matter of record 
that no one method can be described which will prove ade- 
quate and suitable under all conditions with which the egg 
farmer on a large or small scale may be confronted. On 
that account we present the advice of different successful 
poultry keepers, which, taken as a whole, thoroughly 
covers the field of information on the more profitable pro- 
duction of eggs. 

WEBB PUBLISHING CO. 



EQUIPMENT REQUIRED. 



The Kind and Amount of Land Needed — Location and Drain= 

age — The Question of Large Versus Small Houses — Neces= 

sary Coops, Fixtures and Utensils — Comparative 

Cost of a Complete Outfit. 

By H. A. Nourse. 

The amount of land required depends, of course, upon 
the size of the business carried on. There must be a 
certain relative proportion of the number of fowls kept to 
the amount of room occupied, or, as a general rule, results 
will not be satisfactory. 

Where it is the intention to keep fowls profitably for 
eggs, with the least expenditure of time in caring for them,, 
at least one hundred square feet of ground should be allowed 
each mature fowl to range over, when the weather permits 
them to be outdoors a large proportion of the time. There- 
fore a flock of ten hens would require approximately one 
thousand square feet, or a piece of ground ten feet wide 
and one hundred feet long, or about thirty-two feet square. 
On city back lots, where a less space must be used to accom- 
modate this number of layers, additional labor is required 
to keep the surroundings sanitary, i. e., to prevent the 
ground itself from becoming ■" tainted" or loaded with 
filth which in time becomes poison. 

On farms where free range may be provided during the 
greater part of warm weather, yards need not be as large, 
for the ground has opportunity to become cleansed through 
the growth of fresh vegetation in such months as the flock 
is not confined. As a rule, however, one hundred feet of 
yard room is the minimum space compatible with good health 
of the fowls, which in turn is necessary for a high rate of 
production of eggs. 

The Character of the Soil. 

. The exact make-up of the soil is not so material as is 



8 EGG MONEY 

frequently claimed in articles of advice to poultry keepers. 
Formerly, very light, sandy soil was considered most desir- 
able because of the contention that in such soil impurities 
were quickly driven below the surface by heavy rains, 
thus making the yards self-cleansing, as it were. On such 
ground it is almost impossible to maintain a good sod and 
steady growth of grass, something of no little importance 
in a poultry yard. It is a fact that a good growth of vege- 
tation will do more in a month to cleanse the soil of impuri- 
ties caused by the presence of the fowls than will all the 
rains that may «beat upon it in a year. For this reason 
soil that is capable of producing a good crop of grass is to 
be preferred. 

The selection of exceedingly rich soil is not to be advised 
because the additional richness, or fertility, is not required 
for this purpose and may be put to better use in other lines 
of agricultural industry. 

Location and Drainage. 

A good location, with reference to securing protection 
from the cold winds of winter and making the most of the 
sun during the cold months, as well as comparatively 
good drainage, is decidedly important. The ideal location 
is in an orchard protected on the north by hills or groves, 
on land sloping to the south sufficiently to afford good sur- 
face drainage. 




Inexpensive and Practical Continuous Houses in Use on a Weil-Known 
Poultry Farm Where Producing Eggs is the Main Business. 



EQUIPMENT REQUIRED 































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A Substantially Built Continuous House Which is Typical of the More 
Expensive Style of Construction. 

Of these matters good drainage is the most important 
since dampness under or around the poultry house is a sure 
forerunner of unhealthful conditions. The orchard is 
especially well adapted for the purposes of a poultry yard 
because its trees furnish shade in summer, and in the winter, 
when the leaves have fallen, interpose but little obstruc- 
tion to the rays of the sun which in that season are a valua- 
ble aid to the health and comfort of the egg producers. 
Also, the presence of the fowls is of much value to the trees 
which receive more nourishment from the better fertilized 
ground and suffer less from the attacks of worms, since 
the latter are consumed in great measure by the fowls. 

Where it is a case of poultry yards first and orchards 
later, it is advisable to set out fruit trees of whatever variety 
does best in that location, in all of the yards which are per- 
manently located and also on the land which is intended for 
use in rearing the young stock each season. The person 
who keeps poultry in thickly settled portions of a village, 
or on a city lot or part thereof, sometimes finds himself 
unable to secure any of these favorable conditions for his 
flock. Sometimes his location is so hemmed in by build- 
ings that the sun strikes it only at noonday, and the shade 
obtained is only that furnished by the surrounding buildings 
and provided by structures erected for the purpose. In 



10 EGG MONEY 

such locations much additional labor is required to produce 
good results from the fowls kept, but it is done time and 
time again and good egg records and satisfactory profits 
are made. 

The Necessary Buildings. 

It is decidedly important that the house for the laying 
fowls provide certain conditions favorable to health and 
productiveness. The exact manner of providing these 
conditions is of less importance. An investigation of the 
houses on the plants of a dozen poultrymen who make 
the production of eggs the main object of their poultry 
business is likely to reveal the same number of different 
constructions. Yet these buildings may all serve the pur- 
pose with about equal efficiency. The main points to be 
considered are provision for reasonable warmth, proper 
ventilation and sufficient light. It makes little difference 
whether comfortable, healthful quarters are obtained by 
the use of one combination of building material, whether 
ventilation is provided by means of straw lofts or curtain 
fronts, or whether light is admitted through glass windows 
or cloth-filled apertures; that no method is entirely superior 
in all respects all experience proves. 

If the amount of money invested is considered in figuring 
the profits, the houses should be built as simply and cheaply 
as is consistent with requirements. It is a fact that on most 
successful poultry plants where the owner depends upon 
the profit for his support, as well as in many back-lot poultry 
houses, the lumber used is of the cheapest kind, covered 
and made tight with tar paper or some brand of prepared 
roofing and siding. Double-wall houses, that is, houses 
boarded up on the inside and outside of the frame and 
either packed tight with some sort of filling or made tight 
to serve as a dead air space, are rapidly going out of use. 
The single-board structure, covered on the outside with 
one or two thicknesses of prepared fabric manufactured 
for the purpose, and perhaps with lining added back of 
and above the roosts, are proving more satisfactory, even 
in the coldest parts of the United States and in Canada. 
It is a fact, usually easy to demonstrate, that a double- 



EQUIPMENT REQUIRED 



11 



wall house contains an atmosphere with a perceptible chill 
during cold weather which is not found in a single-wall 
structure on the same plant. 

How Much Glass? 

A fault of the past has been the use of too much glass 
in the fronts or south sides of poultry houses; but people 
now appreciate the fact that glass will radiate heat one way 







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with a Central and Warmer Roosting Pen. 

as fast as another and a temperature of sixty degrees on a 
sunny day when the fowls are at work in the house scratch- 
ing in the litter, followed by a temperature of some degrees 
below freezing the following night when the fowls are on the 
roost, is not at all conducive to good health or a profitable 
yield. A greater or less amount of ordinary cotton cloth 
is beginning to appear in the place of glass in poultry houses 



12 



EGG MONEY 



north and south, as the means of providing more fresh 
air for the fowls to breathe, thereby enriching their blood 
with the oxygen it contains and making them better able to 
resist cold. Some poultrymen have gone so far as to 
replace the entire south walls of their poultry houses with 
cloth, but the safer rule appears to be to divide the space 
that would ordinarily be occupied by glass in equal parts, 
filling one part with glass and one with cloth. In parts 
of the country where the thermometer records very low 
temperatures, additional protection is furnished on cold 
nights by a cloth curtain in front of the roosts. This com- 







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A Group of Colony Houses on a Suburban Poultry Farm Where Fine 
Table Eggs are Produced. 



bination of cloth in the south wall and the curtain in front 
of the roosts has proved satisfactory in Maine, Minnesota 
and Canada, as well as in states in warmer latitudes. 

Large Versus Small Houses. 

The question of large or small houses is an open one. 
Whether the colony system or the continuous house system 
is best for housing the laying stock depends considerably 
on the prevailing conditions of environment, the size of the 
business to be conducted and other factors too numerous to 
mention. 



EQUIPMENT REQUIRED 



13 



There is no question that five hunderd layers can be 
cared for at less expense, especially in winter, if accommo- 
dated in a continuous house than if divided in small flocks 
and scattered over a large area in Colony houses. On 
some large egg farms where no fences are used, the colony 
house plan is used because the owners believe that the 
flocks are more easily kept separate if the buildings are 
scattered widely. To the contrary of this may be mentioned 
one of the best known egg farms in the United States where 
no yards are used and practically all the fowls are accommo- 




A Continuous House in Which the Windows of the Roosting Pens and 
the Fronts of the Scratching Pens are of Cloth. 



dated in continuous houses, some of which are more than 
three hundred feet long. In general it may be said that if 
yards are to be used the long nouses enable the caretaker to 
do the work in less time, therefore for less expense, but the 
flocks divided among colony houses are less likely to con- 
tract disease one from the other, provided a careless attend- 
ant allows disease to gain a foothold. 

Coops and Utensils. 

The successful egg farmer of today, whether he handles 
few or many fowls, raises his own stock each season. Where 
one hundred laying hens are wintered, we advise the use of 



14 EGG MONEY 

incubators and brooders. If a less number are handled 
we doubt if their use is to be advised in a majority of cases. 
It may be urged that by the use of incubators and brooders, 
chicks may be hatched and reared early in the season when 
sitting hens cannot be obtained. But we must remember 
that in order to secure eggs when the price is high, in the 
early fall and winter, we must have early hatched fowls. 
These in turn will show a desire to incubate in the early 
spring — early enough to have the chicks hatched at the 
proper time. This, of course, does not apply in cases where 
the breed used is of the non-sitting class. 

Brood coops are needed where hens do the rearing, and 
roosting coops are required whatever the method of hatch- 
ing and caring for the little chicks. In addition to the 
houses, coops, incubators and brooders, very little in the 
way of equipment and utensils is necessary. Cookers for 
heating water and cooking food, troughs and shovels for 
mixing mashes, and pails for carrying the food to the houses 
complete the equipment, aside from that in the houses 
themselves which includes feeding troughs, dry food hoppers, 
grit and shell boxes, nests and water fountains. Shovels 
and hoes are required for caring for and cleaning the houses 
and a chest of tools is needed for making repairs, building 
coops and utensils. 

The Comparative Cost. 

With lumber and other building materials selling at the 
present high prices, with no prospect of lower prices in the 
future, it is, of course, impossible to construct a plant for 
egg production without considerable outlay; but from the 
cost of erecting barns and stables for horses and cows and 
the cost of erecting brooding houses, incubator cellars, etc., 
for broiler plants, it is evident that the cost of making a 
practical poultry plant where the production of eggs is to 
be the main feature is not by any means high. There is 
no one thing required for the business that is costly to pur- 
chase or construct and the chief expense of producing eggs 
is in the labor of caring for the fowls and the feed required. 



SELECTING THE STOCK. 



Strength, Vigor, Health and Increased Power of Production 

are More Important Than Any Particular Breed or Varie= 

ty — Standard Bred Fowls are Best on Account of 

Greater Uniformity in Production and Product. 



By H. A. Nourse. 

The question, "What fowls are the best layers?" is 
frequently asked and the answer varies considerably. If 
the reply is made by one who has bred a certain variety of 
the American class from which he has secured a good egg 
yield, he recommends that variety. A man who has bred 
Leghorns or Minorcas with the same result advises the 
inquirer to select a variety of those breeds. A breeder 
of Langshans or perhaps one who has secured a heavy yield 
from a flock of Light Brahmas will be equally solicitous 
that the would-be poultry keeper adopt Langshans or Brah- 
mas, as the case may be. 

The fact of the matter is this: the Langshans may 
produce more eggs for a certain breeder than a flock of Leg- 
horns upon which he lavishes the same good care; again a 
flock of White Faced Black Spanish may outstrip all its 
competitors in a certain man's yards and be selected as 
the egg producer par excellence by that particular breeder. 
This is done with good reason; the fowls that produce the 
most eggs for the same amount of food and care are the most 
profitable fowls to keep, but the fact that one flock of a 
certain variety produced more eggs than a certain equal 
number of another variety of the same breed or a variety 
of another breed, is not positive proof that all fowls of the 
first mentioned variety will excel all fowls of the competing 
varieties. It is the breeding that makes the layer and 
not the breed or variety. Careful selection of the best 
layers and intelligent breeding of the same for several genera- 



16 EGG MONEY 

tions, together with proper care and feeding, will build up 
a strain of heavy egg producers in any variety. 

The fact that the Leghorn breed is regarded as typical 
of greater egg production is due largely to the fact that since 
its body is too small to be profitable for the production of 
meat, the tendency of its breeders has been to improve its- 
usefulness for egg production. Its nervous, energetic 
disposition has made it a good forager and a constant exer- 
ciser, which in turn have given it stamina and health. 

Characteristics of the Heavy Layer. 

First of all, the productive hen must have strength and 
health. Without these she cannot stand the physical tax 
that accompanies the production of one hundred and fifty 
to two hundred eggs per annum. This strength and health 
come only as the legacy of vigorous ancestors. 

Again, the heavy layer must be active and energetic; 
must be possessed of a considerable amount of nervous 
energy, the force that keeps her moving in almost a constant 
search for food, therefore preventing a sluggish circulation 
of blood and at the same time improving its quality by the 
added number of red corpuscles that are obtained from the 
oxygen of the air that is more rapidly drawn from the lungs. 
These attributes alone, however, will not produce an egg 
yield of over average number. The latter is obtained 
only from fowls which have been bred for heavy layers as 
we have before stated, and so fed and cared for that the 
strain of laying has not weakened their vitality, and which 
have transmitted to their offspring that activity of the organs 
of reproduction which make the two hundred egg hen 
possible. 

Standard=Bred Fowls are Best. 

The old idea that the mongrel hen was the healthiest 
hen and the best layer and that a mixture of different breeds 
was required for vigor is fast fading away. The properly 
handled standard-bred fowl is not only a better layer, but 
is capable of being handled by man in such a manner as to 
produce more uniform results. 

Not only is it possible to secure a greater percentage of 



SELECTING THE STOCK 17 

high-power producers from standard-bred stock, but the 
product itself is more uniform and therefore more salable 
and capable of returning a higher price in discriminating 
markets. The fact that some trials with standard breeds 
have proved unsatisfactory, either from lack of productive- 
ness or lack of health and vitality, or both, is due to the 
fact that the particular strain from which the fowls sprung 
was bred with a view to producing certain color and shape 
characteristics without proper attention being given to the 
basic principles of breeding. The intelligent breeder looks 
well to the vitality of his stock, the careless or ignorant poul- 
tryman does not, and the latter is the worst enemy of stand- 
ard-bred poultry. 

Consider the Market. 

There is, however, one consideration that may not be 
safely overlooked, and that is the color of the shell preferred 
in. the market to which the prospective egg farmer desires 
to cater. In a majority of markets in the United States 
the discriminating trade is in favor of an egg with a dark 
brown shell, while in other markets, though they are less 
in number, an egg with a white shell is preferred. The 
finest trade will pay slightly more for the tint of shell that 
pleases; therefore, if the poult ryman is to cater to the fine 
trade in New York City, a breed which produces white 
shelled eggs, for example Leghorns and Minorcas, should, 
perhaps, be given the preference, provided, of course, not 
much attention is to be given to producing poultry meat 
in connection with the egg business. Where a dark shell 
is preferred, Boston for example, varieties of the American 
or Asiatic classes, namely: Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes, 
Rhode Island Reds, Langshans, Brahmas and Cochins, 
should be given the preference. But when every point is 
considered, the laying-bred fowl has the call rather than that 
of any particular breed or variety. 



HATCHING AND REARING. 



The Importance of Adopting Methods of Hatching and Rearing 
Which Tend to Produce the Highest Degree of Vitality — 
Uniform Development at a Normal Rate is Better 
Than a Rapid Growth. 

By He A. Nourse. 

It is not our intention to go into the details of operating 
incubators, caring for sitting hens, operating brooders, 
etc., because definite instructions for all these things arc 
more fitly the subject for another volume. There are, 
nevertheless, certain features in the hatching and rearing 
of chicks intended for the purposes of an egg farm which 
differ materially from those affecting the production of 
stock destined to the market. In the latter instance the 
business of the poultry keeper is to grow the youngsters 
to marketable age in the shortest possible time and to place 
upon their frames as much soft meat as possible, together 
with a reasonable amount of fat. Chicks started in life 
in this manner never possess the strength and stamina 
required for the best service as profit makers in other lines; 
they never recover from the effects of the unnatural condi- 
tions of the first weeks or months of their lives, whatever 
the environment, care and food may be later. 

The future egg producer should make its entrance in 
the world and pass its early life under such conditions as 
promote perfectly normal growth, or the growth that nature 
intended it should make under the most favorable condi- 
tions. We have mentioned in previous chapters the neces- 
sity of strength in parent stock and the further necessity 
of so conserving that strength that it will be transmitted 
to the chick. A chick from such stock, properly incubated, 
begins life under favorable auspices and requires intelli- 
gent care only to develop within it the vitality of its parent. 

Heavy feeding of overnutritious foods, too long con- 



20 EGG MONEY 

finement in overheated brooder houses and lack of sufficient 
exercise in pure air have seldom produced a developed chick 
with the constitution and vigor required to make it a first 
rank egg producer. 

Conditions That Affect the Hatch. 

Oftentimes a lack of success in rearing the chicks is 
attributed to improper brooding or feeding when the real 
fault lies in the manner of incubating. When the hatching 
is done by healthy hens which perform their work faith- 
fully, the chicks, as a rule, come from the shell strong and 
vigorous. This is due in large measure to the fact that the 
sitting hen is almost invariably surrounded by an atmos- 
phere pretty near as pure as the outdoor air. This air, 
circulating constantly through her plumage, applies to 
the eggs that amount of oxygen which is highly important 
to a successful hatch. Incubators are frequently operated 
in cellars, rooms above ground or in especially constructed 
incubator houses, where fresh air is pretty nearly excluded 
in an endeavor to maintain a reasonably constant tem- 
perature, or, in the early season, a fair degree of warmth. 
However well an incubator may operate under such cir- 
cumstances, it brings chicks out of the shell in no condition 
to take up the business of proper growth and development. 
A chick not well hatched is never a profit-maker. 

Healthful Brooding. 

Occasionally a hen avoids the best laid plans of her 
owner and makes a nest for herself in a brush pile in a secluded 
corner of the farm or perhaps under the floor of a poultry 
house, lays there a sitting of eggs and in due time brings 
off a flock of chicks. If she is not molested by her owner, 
by four footed enemies or by hawks or crows, in nine chances 
out of ten she will raise a large per cent of the chicks she 
takes from the nest, without brood coop or other apparatus 
of later day poultry keeping and ofttimes without any food 
from her owner's bins. Chicks so raised are almost invaria- 
bly strong. Their growth is not so rapid as is possible under 
different conditions, but their development is thoroughly 
normal and of the kind that accompanies health and vigor. 



HATCHING AND REARING 21 

The reason for this is largely the exercise they take dur- 
ing the day in the open air and the freedom they enjoy 
from stuffy, poorly ventilated and perhaps overheated 
coops or brooders at night. If it were possible to reproduce 
these conditions, chicks in brooders or with hens in brood 
coops would be equally strong and fit for their life work. 
But in actual practice we find conditions much different in a 
majority of cases. We find brooders and brooder houses 
to which the pure air of nature is denied admittance or in 
which so much filth exists that the air is quickly contami- 
nated and loses its power to sustain the chick; wo find chicks 
crowding at night in brooders and allowed to overheat by 
careless operators; we find hens with broods confined in 
coops which offer excellent protection from wind and rain 
but which are closed tightly at night, thereby preventing 
proper ventilation and in summer time raising the tempera- 
ture to a high degree. Reverse these conditions and we 
approach the conditions afforded by the hen of the stolen 
nest which reared her brood in the open air and produced 
chicks with strong constitutions. 

Foods and Feeding. 

The manner of feeding and caring for the chicks has 
fully as much to do with their growth and development 
as the exact make-up of the ration. A scientific feeder 
can figure out on paper a perfectly balanced ration contain- 
ing exactly the right proportion of protein and carbohy- 
drates, together with mineral matter, or ash, for the bony 
structure of the bird. This ration may be fed at regular 
intervals and yet fail to produce proper growth, or indeed 
to prevent a high death rate. The failure of such a ration 
to produce good results is not the fault of the chemist that 
compounded it or the ration itself, but is because the con- 
ditions surrounding the chicks are such that they cannot 
make proper use of it after they consume it. 

Good food is useful only when it is properly assimilated 
and becomes a part of the blood, flesh and bone of the living 
body and this assimilation is possible only when the diges- 
tive organs are healthy. A well-ordered digestive apparatus 
in such cases depends almost solely upon the proper warmth, 



22 



EGG MONEY 



sufficient exercise and an abundance of pure air for the 
chick. That is why the chick brought up by the mother 
hen on the range seldom has digestive troubles. 

Formerly the poultry keeper mixed various mashes with 
milk or water, or baked a johnny cake of corn meal and bran, 
for the broods during their younger days. In late years 
this method of feeding has given way to the use of prepared 
chick foods which are made of various grains and seeds, 
with some meat food added, and which are fed dry. These 
foods produce excellent results and this manner of feeding 
appears to be nearer nature. 

When the chicks are weaned, that is, when they graduate 
from the care of the mother hen or are separated from the 
brooder, they begin their real period of growth and develop- 
ment and require larger quarters and more extensive range, 
The poultry keeper who can scatter his weaned broods in 
flocks of twenty-five, in colony houses, and allow them to 
run over the broad acres of a farm is fortunate, for under 
such conditions the chicks attain that development which is 
required for best results and do it at the lowest cost for food 
and care. 

He who must keep his chicks within yards must see to it 
that these yards are clean and that special inducements to 
exercise are furnished the youngsters. In most cases this 
must be done by feeding them the grain part of their bill 
of fare in a deep litter from which they must scratch it out. 
To sum up, the factors absolutely necessary for the produc- 
tion of the profit makers are: correct incubation, correct 
brooding, correct feeding and a clean, healthful environment, 
from the time of exclusion from the shell. 




REARING HEAVY LAYERS. 

Methods of Selecting the Eggs and Hatching and Rearing 
the Record Layers— Feeding for Eggs- 
Improving the Flock. 



By L. B. Rich. 

Have your chickens laid well during the winter? If 
not, now is the time to figure on raising stock that will lay 
next winter. It takes no more time nor does it cost any 
more money to raise winter layers than it does those that 
lay only in spring and summer. 

Select some standard breed, one that you like, and then 
stick to it. You will find the varieties of the American 
class, Wyandottes, Rocks, or Rhode Island Reds, to be 
good money makers. 

Like begets like — so don't expect a hen that lays only 
in the spring and summer to breed daughters that will 
be winter layers, for she won't do it. Make certain of one 
thing first, that the eggs you incubate in spring came 
from hens that as pullets laid in the winter and you will 
have made a good beginning towards obtaining winter 



Hatch in April. 

Hatch your chicks during April and up to May 15th. 
You will find an incubator is the best investment you can 
make to accomplish this. When the chicks are hatched, 
don't crowd them into a small stuffy brooder to suffocate 
for want of fresh air; build a colony house 6 x 10 feet in 
size, 5 feet high in the back and 7 feet in front ; put an indoor 
brooder in it and you have an outfit that will pay for itself 
with every hatch. 

Feeding the Chicks. 

Cover the floor of the house with chaff from under the 
hay loft. Scatter dry chick food — wheat, cracked corn, 



24 



EGG MONEY 



millet, sorghum seed or any small grains in this litter 
and let them scratch it out. There are lots of days in April 
that you can't let the chicks out in the wet; on those days 
cut pieces of sod two or three feet square and put one in 
each colony house for the chicks to work on. 

At the start get a roll of two foot poultry wire and 
make a small yard in front of the colony house; enlarge 
this yard as the chicks grow and when they are six weeks 
old remove it entirely. The chicks will hustle all day and 
return to the house at night. When the chicks are six 
weeks old, feed oats, whole oats, hulls and all. If they 
don't take to them, starve them to it. Oats is one of the 
best foods on the farm for poultry. 

Market the Cockerels Early. 

As soon as the cockerels weigh two pounds each, ship 
them to market and give the pullets their room. Keep 
plenty of clean straw for the chicks to sleep on; don't let 




One of the Colony Poultry Houses Designed by L. B. Rich, Described 
in his Article, "Rearing Heavy Layers." 



REARING HEAVY LAYERS 



25 




A Group of Early Laying Pullets which were Reared in the Manner 
Described by L. B. Rich. 

them go on to a roost before they are four or five months 
old. Let them hustle on the farm all day and fill them full 
of grain at night. Keep them growing every day and when 
they are six months old, they should be talking about lay- 
ing and then is your time to do some fine work. 

People used to think that if they gave the chicks summer 
conditions in the winter, they would get winter eggs and 
the only condition they thought of was heat. Now, as 
a matter of fact, heat cuts but a very small figure in the 
production of winter eggs. Fresh, dry air and proper feed 
and care are of much more importance. 

Feeding for Eggs. 

All summer the chicks have had all the green grass and 
clover they wanted, with bugs galore, for animal food, 
and they must have this same material in some form dur- 
ing the winter to produce the eggs. Early in the fall 
fix a box or hopper to contain dry bran and beef scraps, 
mixed half and half by measure, where they can get all 
they want. Throw some clover hay to them, or, better, 
fix a rack to hold it and keep the rack full; they will eat 
all but the wood. Drive some nails into the sides of your 
pens, and each day jab some nabbage, mangels, beets or 



26 



EGG MONEY 



any roots you can get on them and watch the hens eat. 
Keep plenty of straw on the floors for them to work in and 
scatter all the grain they will eat in the straw and let them 
work it out. Wheat, oats, barley, corn and spelt z are all 
good grains to feed; give them a variety and don't be afraid 
of overfeeding if they have to work for it. Above all, 
don't be afraid to give them plenty of fresh air. 

To Improve the Flock. 

In the fall, as the pullets begin laying, you will find 
some six weeks difference between the time the first one 
starts and the last one from the same hatch. Leg-band 
those first layers and the next year breed from them. Fol- 
low this up and in a few years you Will have a strain of fowls 
that you can be assured will lay in the fall and winter. 
Don't get the idea that if they lay in winter they won't 
lay in the spring, for you will find that the hen that lays 
the most eggs in the winter will also lay the most during 
March, April and May. 

Eggs in winter depend on breeding, raising, feeding, and 
housing. You can make a straw shed, muslin the front, 
and get just as many eggs as though you had a $1,000.00 
hen house. 




CARE OF THE FUTURE LAYERS. 



A Description of the Care and Foods Required to Produce 

Rapid and Uniform Development in the Prospective Egg 

Producers — the Value of Range and Fresh Air — 

the Preferred Styles of Roosting Coops — the 

Foods to Feed — Changing to Winter 

Quarters. 

By H. A. Nourse. 

It is generally conceded that the best egg yields can be 
secured from pullets and the problem of caring for them, 
in order to produce early and continued laying, is an im- 
portant one. The highest prices for this product are ob- 
tained during the fall and early winter, and the poultry- 
man's income is increased or diminished in many cases 
by the number of eggs he secures in November, December 
and Januarj*. While foods play an important part in the 
development of the pullets, the environment and roosting 
accommodations are deserving of more than passing no- 
tice. 

The Proper Environment. 

Although very good pullets can be raised in limited 
quarters, free range is desirable, both because it is con- 
ducive to healthy, vigorous growth and because it reduces 
appreciably the labor of caring for the flock. Up to the 
time when the ground freezes, the birds can find consider- 
able nourishment, both animal and vegetable, which ac- 
ceptably fills the place of much that must otherwise be 
bought and paid for. Bugs and worms, together with dry 
berries and green vegetable growths fill a want that can- 
not be as well supplied by the feeder. 

Exercise plays an important part in the well-being of 
all poultry and the growing stock in particular. Any de- 



28 EGG MONEY 

vice or method intended to promote exercise in flocks con- 
fined in yards is not nearly so effective as the opportunity 
to run free over the broad acres of the farm, or a tract 
of considerable area on the plant of limited acreage. It 
is the vigorous pullet that lays the eggs and the exercising 
pullet is the most vigorous. 

Healthful Accommodations. 

In most latitudes where the poultry business is suc- 
cessfully carried on, the weather continues comfortable 
during the month of October and the maturing pullets are 
better off in the fields, with roosting coops in which to 
find shelter and protection at night, than they are in the 
permanent houses and yards. Fresh air is as necessary 
during the night as it is in the daytime, and coops so con- 
structed as to admit plenty of it, and at the same time 
protect the flock from drafts, are to be desired. The writ- 
er prefers coops about 3x6 feet on the ground, 3 feet high 
at the rear and 5 feet in front. These require but little 
framing and may be covered with tongued and grooved 
lumber with the roofs covered with some waterproof 
fabric to keep them dry. The north side and both ends 
should be tightly boarded; but the south side may be 
covered with three-inch slats, placed two inches apart. 
If there is danger from animals, the front may be cov- 
ered with inch mesh wire netting outside the slats or the 
slats may be dispensed with entirely and the wire sup- 
ported by an occasional upright. Each coop should be 
provided with a door of convenient size which will be most 
convenient if placed in the center of the front. The door 
should not be solid, but made in the same manner as the 
remainder of the front side. 

As cold weather approaches and the nights become 
chilly, a curtain of light cotton cloth, or of burlap, may be 
rigged to cover the front of the coop when necessary to 
protect the inmates from cold winds or from storms. 

Crowding is Dangerous. 

One of the principal dangers to flocks of maturing 
chicks is from crowding. Frequently the broods are al- 
lowed to remain in the small coops in which they were 



CARE OF FUTURE LAYERS 



29 



placed when hatched until they are removed to winter 
quarters. Crowding into these coops at night, they be- 
come overheated and lose more strength during the hours 
when they are supposed to rest than they gain in the day- 
time. Food furnished a flock so housed produces but 



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Recommended as Summer Quarters for Growing Pullets. 



indifferent results and the birds would be far healthier 
were they allowed to roost in trees. 

We not infrequently find a large flock crowded into a 
roosting coop which is tightly built and of which the doors 
and windows, either from a mistaken idea of the protec- 
tion required against the elements or in order to make 
them safe against intrusions of animals, are tightly shut 
every night. Before the youngsters have been confined 
in such a place half an hour, the air within is wholly unfit 



30 ' EGG MONEY 

to breathe and its condition in the morning is best de- 
scribed as filthy. On opening such a coop to liberate the 
chicks in the morning, it will be noticed that the confined 
air is heated almost to the suffocating point and laden 
with impurities. The result of such housing is lowered 
vitality, accompanied by colds and a strong tendency to- 
ward roup. To expect paying results from such flocks is 
scarcely reasonable. It pays to furnish healthful condi- 
tions. 

We believe it is the opinion of most poultrymen who de- 
pend upon the production of market eggs for all, or a sub- 
stantial part, of their income that the sooner after Novem- 
ber first the developed and nearly developed pullets are 
placed in the quarters that they will occupy during the win- 
ter, the better will be the results obtained. The writer's 
experience is closely in line with the above, except with re- 
spect to localities where the weather continues warm and 
the pullets have to be confined to the houses, or houses and 
small yards, if placed in winter quarters. In latitudes 
where the ground freezes, cold winds blow, hard rains are 
probable and snow possible, November first is not too early 
to move the profit makers from the coops to permanent 
houses. 

Housing the Egg Producers. 

The main reasons for putting the pullets in their winter 
quarters are: to accustom them to the new environment 
before the majority of them begin laying in order that egg 
production need not be interrupted by the excitement inci- 
dent to a change later; to better provide shelter from se- 
vere weather; and to furnish more room per bird, under 
cover, where each can obtain, more exercise and have a 
better chance to receive food and water, during stormy 
days when they must be confined to the buildings. 

To take pullets from free range and place them in quar- 
ters where they must limit their wanderings to small yards 
is too great a change, a fact that will be apparent to any 
poultryman who will observe a flock carefully when such a 
change is made. The change of ration from that contain- 
ing much of nature's food, found in the fields, to one whol- 
ly prepared by the most careful and intelligent feeder, af- 
fects the digestion more or less. 



CARE OF FUTURE LAYERS. 31 

For these reasons the pullets should be given their lib- 
erty, after they are accustomed to the houses, every day 
when the weather is fair, unless the ground is covered 
with snow. Mere cold will not hurt them, if the ground is 
bare, for if accustomed to the houses they will seek shelter 
in them if uncomfortable outside. If not " house-broken " 
it may be necessary to call or drive them in if the temper- 
ature falls suddenly or a storm comes up. 

Very likely the weather will be such that the pullets can 
have free range, with comfort to themselves and satisfac- 
tion to their owners, two-thirds of the days before Decem- 
ber first. 

Do Not Close the Houses. 

Too many make the mistake of closing their houses at 
night when the pullets are introduced, and a few fail to 
open the windows and doors during the day. 

There are two things which are essential to the success 
of any method intended for the prevention of colds — they 
are, freedom from drafts and a plentiful supply of fresh, 
pure air. A supply of good air can be obtained without 
danger from drafts if the north side, ends and roof of the 
house are tightly built and fresh air is admitted through 
the south side. In buildings that are narrower than they 
should be for economy or convenience, a strong south wind 
may occasionally blow against the fowls on the roosts, or 
storms may beat in through open windows. Either will 
cause trouble but may be prevented by placing a frame, rilled 
with light cotton cloth or burlap, in the spaces made by 
opening the windows. Air will pass through this material, 
but drafts will not. 

Ventilate Freely. 

Roosts which are not located at the back of the pen, or 
farthest from the windows, are not in the right place and 
should be changed. Close the doors at night and leave the 
windows open more or less according to the weather, but 
be sure that the minimum of open space is sufficient to 
make the house practically odorless. During the bright 
days throw windows and doors wide open; let in all the 



32 EGG MONEY 

fresh air and sunlight possible, for they are great purifiers 
and cost nothing. 

Foods and Feeding. 

If the pullets are out in the fields every day when the 
weather permits, feeding is a simple problem. But if they 
must be confined in houses an effort must be made to sup- 
ply that part of their food which they would obtain in the 
fields, if allowed their liberty, and to supply it in a similar 
form so far as possible. 

For flocks enjoying free range, a liberal supply of the 
principal grains, with fresh water daily, is all that is re- 
quired. Corn, wheat, and oats fe^d alternately, one in the 
morning, one at mid-day, and one toward evening, will pro- 
duce good results if a dish of beef scraps is constantly in 
reach of the flock from which they can secure what ani- 
mal food they need to bring that obtained by foraging up 
to the requirements of their systems. 

Some breeders prefer to feed a damp mash at least once 
each day. The writer is inclined to favor feeding this mix- 
ture in the morning and has found that two parts of corn- 
meal, three of bran and sufficient beef scraps to make 10 
per cent of the mash is a simple and effective combination. 
If milk can be obtained to mix this mash it is more palat- 
able and produces better results. When mash is fed the 
dish of beef scraps mentioned above, may be dispensed 
with, but meat must be provided in some* manner if the best 




A Colony House for Winter Layers which has a Glass Window, also 
Cloth-Filled Aperture to Provide Ventilation. 



CARE OF FUTURE LAYERS 33 




Continuous Houses for Laying Hens, with Part of the Window Space 
Occupied by Glass and Part by Cloth-Filled Frames. 

growth and development are expected. During the past 
few years food hoppers have come into quite general use. 
These are so arranged that dry grains, beef scraps, etc., 
are held in a sort of reservoir and fed into small troughs 
at its base as fast as eaten by the chicks. These hop- 
pers are filled whenever empty and are constantly where 
the chicks can reach them. This method of feeding re- 
duces considerably the time required to care for a large 
flock and in most cases produces as good or better results 
than the time-honored three meals a day. Whole and crack- 
ed grain of different varieties may be placed in different 
compartments, or in different hoppers, or may be mixed and 
fed in one compartment. As a rule the chicks will waste 
less if it is fed in different compartments for they are less 
likely to throw out grain that they do not want while 
searching for that which their appetite demands. 

Some poultrymen prefer to feed what they call a dry 
mash in one compartment of their hoppers; that is, they 
mix the ground grains and whatever they would use in 
their damp mash and place it dry in the hoppers. These 
hoppers are easily constructed by the poultrymen or may 
be obtained of most dealers in poultry supplies. 

These hoppers must be placed in the nouses where the 
pullets can reach the food when bad weather keeps them 
indoors. It will serve as an inducement for them to re- 
turn to the buildings at evening. 

Provide for the Overflow. 

It not infrequently happens that the poultryman finds 



34 EGG MONEY 

himself without permanent accommodations sufficient to 
shelter his entire flock, and is obliged to keep the younger 
ones in coops until he can so reduce his stock that all may 
be placed in winter quarters. 

The open front coops that are desirable in the fall will 
not be suitable for use in November in the northern states 
and Canada. But they can be made suitable by providing 
each with a temporary front of boards, in which there is 
a window and a door. Some breeders have colony coops 
built for this purpose which are, in effect, little houses. 
They are tightly built and have doors for attendant and 
fowls, and windows capable of being adjusted for venti- 
lating purposes. One of these coops, three feet wide and 
six long, equipped with roosts, will accommodate twenty 
young pullets so long as the weather will permit them to 
be out half of the time. A dozen may be kept in such a 
coop well into winter, if necessity compels it, without 
experiencing much hardship. 

These coops are very useful in the spring as quarters 
for hens with early broods of chicks for which small coops 
would not be sufficient protection. 

Ask a novice in the business of producing market eggs, 
how a flock should be handled to produce the greatest num- 
ber in the most profitable season and he will at once think 
of feeding as the only important feature in the production 
of this well paying commodity. While there can be no suc- 
cess without proper feeding, it is equally true that, how- 
ever well-fed a flock may be, it will not produce eggs in pay- 
ing quantities in the season of high prices unless condi- 
tions are reasonably favorable. The environment and gen- 
eral care also have considerable bearing upon the amount 
of food consumed and therefore affect the profits at two 
points. Exercise, fresh air, cleanliness, all contribute to 
the poultryman's success in this work. 

Warm Versus Cold Houses. 

It is seldom that anyone advises the use of artificial heat 
in poultry houses, but some poultrymen strive to build 
houses which the cold will not penetrate, by building double 
walls, some solid and some with packing between, by using 
double windows, and by stopping every crack and crevice. 



CARE OP FUTURE LAYERS 35 

Others are firm in their belief and outspoken in their as- 
sertions that houses tightly built on three sides of one 
thickness of lumber, with perhaps a thickness of paper add- 
ed, and with fronts in which a large area of muslin takes 
the place of the area of glass usually provided, are more 
comfortable for the fowls and therefore productive of more 
satisfactory results. 

The writer's experience with tightly built, double walled 
houses has been far from satisfactory. One of the best 
buildings of the kind ever built was tightly boarded inside 
and outside of the joists, with a four-inch air space between, 
and was, the winter through, far less comfortable than 
houses on the same plant which were single boarded, the 
boards being covered with a roofing material manufactured 
for the purpose. In a tightly built house without perfect 
ventilation dampness will collect, rendering the house far 
less comfortable for the fowls. 

There is no question but that the best ventilation is se- 
cured in houses in which the place of glass windows is 
taken by cloth filled frames. Pure air is admitted freely 
through the cloth and foul air escapes as easily, but drafts 
are cut off. A poultry house constructed of tongued and 
grooved lumber, which is in turn tightly covered with a 
good quality of roofing fabric, will be comfortable and 
healthful in almost any climate if the area of glass in the 
front side is not greater than it should be, and if, in addi- 
tion, there is a small area in the front of each pen rilled 
with heavy cotton cloth. The glass will admit the sun's 
rays and the cloth will cut off the drafts but admit plenty 
of fresh air. 

The Value of Exercise. 

The majority of poultry men, of which number the writer 
is one, believe thoroughly in the value of vigorous exercise 
during the winter when fowls must be confined for a greater 
portion of the time to the houses. On bright days it is an 
excellent practice to shovel away the snow, if there is snow, 
from in front of the houses so that the fowls can get out in 
the middle of the day. 

Some breeders who have not many fowls to care for put 



36 EGG MONEY 

straw or other material out in the open air, even when that 
area is surrounded by snow, and induce the hens to scratch 
by scattering a little grain in the scratching material. But 
the poultryman whose time is taken from before daybreak 
until after dark, seldom does anything of that kind. His 
fowls must take their exercise indoors and he therefore cov- 
ers the floor of each pen thick with hay, straw, leaves or 
other material and buries all whole and cracked grain there- 
in, compelling his fowls to scratch it out. 

Exercise loses half its value when not performed in 
fresh, pure air. On that account the windows should be 
open, more or less according to the temperature, while the 
fowls are at work. On bright days they may be thrown 
wide open, no matter how low the temperature is, for the 
fowls are far less susceptible to cold, if healthy, when work- 
ing than they are to the sudden change which follows if 
they become overheated. In such cases they invariably 
take cold when inactive. It will not do to close the houses 
tightly when the first severe weather arrives. Provide 
plenty of ventilation to keep the air reasonably pure with- 
in the building or colds are likely to result and roup is 
probable. 

Green Food Essential. 

It should be remembered that the foods fed in winter are 
largely preserved; that is, they have been dried or cured 
so that they will keep and they are to that extent artificial 
and alone will not keep the fowls in the best condition. 
Green food must be furnished in liberal quantities and must 
be of reasonably good quality. 

The orthodox method of furnishing green food is to sup- 
ply plenty of second quality cabbage. While no fault can be 
found with this vegetable for the purpose, there are others 
that are as effective and which may be used to advantage 
by way of variety, for most any vegetable, which keeps well 
in winter, may be fed raw to the fowls if they will eat it 
with relish. Owners of orchards, who also keep poultry, 
frequently store away several barrels of small, but sound, 
apples to feed to their fowls during the winter. Probably 
nothing equals mangel-wurzel beets for this purpose; they 



CARE OF FUTURE LAYERS 



37 



not only furnish a succulent and appetizing substance, but 
are much stronger in food values than the other green 
foods. They are heavy yielders and excellent keepers. 
When visiting a plant in Indiana recently in the month of 
October, the writer was shown some m angel- wurzels which 
had been stored in a root house twelve months and were 
still in excellent condition for feeding. 

The Utility of Meat Foods. 

It is generally accepted as a fact that meat in some form 
must be furnished if the best results in winter eggs are ex- 







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pected. For this purpose ground fresh bone easily holds 
first place in the estimation of the majority of poultry keep- 
ers. Such material can be purchased from butchers at a 
price ranging from a cent to one and one half cents a pound. 
Sufficient meat usually clings to these bones so that when 
ground it makes a food that is efficient and not too expen- 
sive. Numerous mills are manufactured for grinding these 
bones. These mills have been so perfected that the grind- 
ing of sufficient bone to feed one hundred hens three times 
a week is but the work of a few minutes and requires no 
great muscular exertion. 

Those who cannot obtain fresh bone in sufficient quanti- 
ties or who for any reason do not have time to prepare it, 



38 EGG MONEY 

find in the prepared beef scraps, sold b}^ dealers in poultry 
supplies, a very satisfactory substitute. They may be 
bought in any quantity, will keep indefinitely in a dry place, 
and are convenient to handle and to feed. Owners of small 
flocks containing a dozen to thirty birds often find the meat 
scraps left from their tables and kitchens sufficient to fur- 
nish all the meat required by their fowls. 

Kind and Quantity of Foods. 

No rules for feeding fowls can be formulated which apply 
in different cases with equal success. One poultryman hav- 
ing had excellent success when feeding certain foods will 
sometimes decide that he has discovered the true secret of 
success and will publish his manner of feeding. Those who 
read and repeat his method fail to secure as good results. 
That is due to different environment, care, etc. 

Two men living in the same neighborhood, handling the 
same varieties of fowls and using the same methods of 
housing and caring for their flocks will use different meth- 
ods of feeding, yet one will have as good success as the 
other. 

There are, however, certain grains and combinations of 
grains which are necessar}^ to produce good results under 
any and all conditions. The principal grains fed are corn, 
wheat, oats and barley and they in their various combina- 
tions are sufficient to produce a good yield of eggs, if the 
green food, meat, etc., are furnished and if the fowls are 
properly cared for. Variety, although necessary, is usually 
secured by alternating these grains, though additionl 
varieties are fed at times in limited quantities, with good 
results. It is evident that less of the damp mash mixtures 
made from ground grains are being fed as time goes on. 
The tendency is to furnish most of the grain ration dry and 
whole or cracked, in order that it may be fed in a deep lit- 
ter to promote exercise. 

It is also claimed by those in position to know that too 
much feeding of damp mashes impairs digestion. The ma- 
jority of successful poult rymen may be divided into two 
classes as regards their manner of feeding: one class feeds 
dry food entirely and the other a combination of dry and 



CARE OF FUTURE LAYERS 39 

mash food. Of the first the greater number perhaps 
place their beef scraps and dry bran in hoppers where the 
fowls constantly have access to it and bury the remainder 
of the food, which is whole and cracked grains, in the litter. 

Of those who still cling to the use of mash, part feed it 
in the morning and part feed it at night. A few believe 
that mash should be cool when fed and others desire to feed 
it warm. 

The best results, from the writer's experience, have been 
obtained by the use of a judicious combination of the two 
methods. Whole and cracked grain are fed in the litter in 
the morning, as soon as the fowls leave their roosts. Corn, 
wheat and oats, furnished alternately, with an occasional 
feed of barley is used for this purpose. At noon on very 
cold days, more grain is buried in the scratching material 
in order that the fowls may have more opportunity to ex- 
ercise and hasten the circulation of their blood, thereby 
protecting them to some extent against cold. If ground 
green bone is fed, noon is the time to feed it. At night a 
mash made up of two parts corn meal, three parts bran, one 
and one half parts steamed green cured clover, and beef 
scraps added to make ten per cent of the whole, mixed with 
water or milk, has always produced satisfactory results. 
For the vegetable part of this mash, cooked and mashed 
potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips or any combination of these 
varieties is desirable and may be used at very slight ex- 
pense. 

We are frequently asked about the quantity of food needed 
by each fowl. This question can neve'r be definitely ans- 
wered because fowls of the same breed, in the same pen, 
will consume different amounts, and two pens of the same 
variety, kept under apparently the same conditions, will 
require different amounts of food at different times. It is 
a safe rule to feed in the litter no more grain than the fowls 
are willing to scratch hard to obtain and to feed no more 
mash food in the troughs than will be quickly consumed. 
Clean water should always be provided and in such a man- 
ner that the fowls cannot scratch dirt into it. Grit, shells, 
and charcoal should always be accessible. 



FROM FALL TO WINTER QUARTERS. 

Sound Advice On the Care of Fowls at the Beginning of 

Cold Weather — The Advantage of Fresh Air 

— Foods Which Must Be Furnished. 



By L. B. Rich. 

November is the month when many people, with the best 
of intentions, use such methods in caring for their fowls 
that they put them in such condition that they will lay 
hardly an egg all winter. 

Until this time the birds have been roosting in open front 
colony houses, trees, old sheds, and in fact almost every- 
where on the place. Don't now put them in a tight, warm 
house, with windows closed and no chance for fresh air to 
get in. Of course you must put them into the house, but re- 
move the windows entirely, (if you are so unfortunate as to 
have any) and leave them off until the thermometer records 
zero weather. Don't be afraid they will freeze. What do 
you suppose they have been putting on all those new feathers 
for? Not for looks alone surely, but for protection against 
cold; and after nature has provided a good warm coat .for 
3^our birds, don't make it uncomfortable and unhealthy for 
them to wear it. 

Just keep your think-tank working, and you will soon 
know the folly of using tight, warm houses. 

Muslin Windows for Zero Weather. 

When zero arrives stretch common muslin in the open- 
ings where you had windows. Put it on frames and hang 
the frames so that they will swing in and up. On bright, 
sunny days, no matter how cold it is, swing them up and 
let the sunlight shine directly into the house. It will 
purify the litter and the birds enjoy it. 

I can hear you say, "that won't do for my Leghorns. " 
That's where you are wrong. A breeder at Duluth, 
Minn., has wintered his Leghorns in a house with muslin 
windows for three years, with excellent results. 



FALL TO WINTER QUARTERS 41 

During the summer and fall the fowls have had all the 
clover, grass and bugs they wanted. Now if you do not 
supply them, just as soon as they are penned up, with 
green stuff and animal food, in some form, don't look for 
eggs. 

Feed Green Food and Meat. 

Build a small rack, like those farmers feed sheep in, and 
fill it with clover ha3^; the fowls will eat everything but the 
woody stalks. The possession of a clover cutter is an ad- 
vantage, but one can do without it. Once a week a feed of 
chopped onions will do worlds of good. 

Animal food can be supplied in the form of skim-milk, 
if you have it; if not, get some prepared beef scraps from 
any of the supply houses and keep it before your birds all 
the time. One hundred hens will eat one hundred pounds 
of good scraps in thirty days. Keep also a box of dr}^ bran 
where the fowls can always reach it. 

Feed as many kinds of grain as you can get but feed it in 
deep litter, so the hens will have to scratch for it. Do all 
these things and you will get winter eggs if your stock has 
the winter laying ability in them, but do not expect a hen 
that has laid only in spring and summer to produce daughters 
that will lay in winter, for they won't do it 

How to Provide Exercise. 

When the fowls are out in the fields, or in large yards, 
they obtain sufficient exercise; but when snow, or extreme 
cold, makes it necessary to shut them in houses, some 
means of exercising must be furnished or the health of 
the birds will suffer. 

The best way to compel exercise is to cover the floors of 
the houses with cheap hay, straw, leaves, hay chaff, corn 
husks, or any material in which hard grain can be buried 
and from which the fowls can scratch it out. 

If a moderate amount of grain is fed at each meal the 
flock will work vigorously several hours each day and their 
productiveness will increase considerably. 

Be sure that the windows are open so that plenty of fresh 
air is admitted while the hens are at work. Don't be afraid 
that the fowls will take cold while exercising. 



HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS. 



A Description of the Equipment in Use at the Maine Ex= 

periment Station— The Good Qualities and Defects 

Brought to Light by Experiments — How a 

Satisfactory Building for Layers Was 

Finally Constructed. 



By G. M. Gowell. 

Two styles of houses are in use at the Maine Station. 
One is a thoroughly made double walled building, 16 x 150 
feet in size. It is always kept above freezing by a water 
heater and a flow and return two-inch pipe, running the 
length of the building. This building was constructed 
with especial reference to comfort, health and productive- 
ness. Small, well made houses with single walls had for- 
merly been in use, but they would get white with frost in 
cold weather, if shut up close enough so the birds did not 
suffer from cold during winter nights. When the weather 
moderated, the white frost would change to water and the 
straw litter on the floor would become damp and clammy. 
The birds showed their dislike for the damp straw by keep- 
ing off from it as much as they could. Such houses were 
unsatisfactory, and so the large warmed house was built. 
It was a decided improvement over the cold ones, because 
it could be ventilated and the birds not suffer with the cold. 
But it was not possible to secure sufficient ventilation, 
even though the house was moderately warmed, to prevent 
the presence of considerable moisture in the bedding. 

Good yields of eggs were obtained from hens kept in 
that house and the losses of birds were not excessive. The 
hens showed, however, that they were not in the best con- 
dition by a little lack of color in comb and energy in "action. 
This house has not been abandoned, but is not prized 
for laying hens. Since breeding cockerels cannot be car- 



44 EGG MONEY 

ried over in the other houses, without danger of chilled combs, 
they are wintered in this warmed house until danger from 
chilling is past. 

The First Fresh Air House. 

In seeking for some better system of housing the birds 
one of the small close houses, formerly used, was changed 
into an open house. The building was 10 feet wide and 25 
feet long. An opening 3 feet wide and 15 feet long was 
made close up under the plate, and was left open every day 
in winter, except when the snow or rain blew in. At night 
the opening was covered with a framed curtain made of 
cotton cloth. An elevated roosting closet along the entire 
length of the back of the building was made warm by pack- 
ing the walls with hay. A close fitting frame cloth cur- 
tain shut them in at night. 

It did not freeze in the closet and the birds apparently 
did not suffer for lack of air. They seemed to enjoy com- 
ing out of the warm sleeping closet, down into the cold straw, 
which was never damp, as the whole house was open to the 
outside air and sun every day. There were no shut off 
corners of the floor or closet that were damp. This build- 
ing was used through three winters with 50 hens in it each 
year and did not have a sick bird in it. Not a case of cold 
or sniffles developed from sleeping in the closet with its 
cloth front, and then going directly down into the dry 
straw, in the cold room, and spending the day in the open air. 

The birds laid as well as did their mates in the large 
warmed house. Their combs have been red and plumage 
bright and they have given every evidence of perfect health 
and vigor. While they are on the roosts, in bed, they are 
warm. They come down to their breakfasts and spend the 
day in the open air. Such habits of life seem to work equal- 
ly well with brute or man. 

After having used this so-called pioneer house one year, a 
house was constructed 12 feet wide and 68 feet long. Its 
front and back walls were 5 feet high and the roof was even- 
ly divided. It was divided into 2 rooms, each 34 feet long. 
The elevated roosting closets extended along the entire 
back of each room and they were constructed in the same 



HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS 



45 



manner as the one in the pioneer house. The partition be- 
tween the 2 rooms was made of 2-inch mesh poultry net- 
ting. There were 4 openings in the front of the building, 
2 in each room, equal distances apart. Each opening was 
33^ x 8 feet in size, fitted with frame cloth curtains, to be 
used only on winter nights and stormy days, in the same 











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The Original Fresh Air (Curtain Front) Laying- House at the Maine 
Experiment Station, Described by G. M. Gowell. 

way that they were in the pioneer house. These openings 
were put up close to the plates and came down to within 
V/2 feet of the floor. There were no glass windows in the 
building. 

Currents of Air Proved Troublesome. 

This house was not satisfactory. There were currents 
of air from one end of the building to the other, even when 
there was little wind outside, and when the wind was high 
in winter the loose snow would be sifted in and distributed 
over a large part of the floor, dampening the litter and mak- 



46 EGG MONEY 

ing life uncomfortable for the birds. The wire partition 
between the pens was replaced with one of close boards, 
and conditions were bettered; but each of the pens still 
had two openings, about 8 feet apart, and the same troubles 
from currents of air and sifting snow continued, although 
somewhat lessened. One of the openings was closed by 
screwing glass windows on -the. outside. This left each 
of the rooms with one opening and one large glass window. 

This change entirely corrected strong air currents 
through the building and sifting snow, except in heavy 
storms when the wind is strong from the south. Of course 
the large opening allows the wind to blow into the room, 
but as there is no outlet for it except where it came in, 
there are no drafts of air across the birds to cause them 
to be uncomfortable and take colds. 

Another difficulty remained; the opening came down 
to within 1J^ feet of the floor, and the birds, sunning them- 
selves on the* floor or scratching in the litter, were in the 
direct course of the outside air as it came into the room 
and they tried to find sheltered corners where they might 
be more comfortable. On this account the width of the 
opening was reduced from 3^ feet to 2 feet by ceiling up 
the lower part of it. This gave a bulkhead -3 feet high, 
sufficient to protect the birds on the floor from the direct 
inflow of outdoor air and they were happy. 

One objection to this house still remains; its front wall 
is too low to allow room for a large opening, high enough 
so that the sun can shine in and back across the floor to 
the back wall during the short days. in winter, when the 
sun runs low. This feature in construction seems to be 
of the utmost importance, for dependence is had upon the 
sunshine and pure outside air to keep the floor litter dry 
and the elevated roosting closet clean. The entire front 
of the roosting closet being open, leaves no dark corners 
where the air and light cannot do their thorough cleansing. 

Experience with the house showed its several bad fea- 
tures On the other hand, the pioneer house, which had 
been in use for three years, gave great satisfaction, and the 
same general plan was adopted in the construction of a 
large house. 



HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS 47 

This house, designated as No. 2, was built three years 
ago. It is 12 feet wide and 150 feet long and is divided 
into 20 feet sections. In each section, with its floor sur- 
face of 240 feet, 50 pullets have been wintered each year, 
most successfully. 

Wide Houses are Most Satisfactory. 

Two years ago another house was built on the same 
plan, except that it is 16 feet wide instead of 12. It is 120 
feet long and consists of 4 sections or houses, each 16 x 30 
feet in size. There is no separate walk through the build- 
ing, but in the close board partition, separating the pens, 
are doors, hung with double acting hinges, which allow 
them to swing both ways and close automatically after 
the attendant passes through. Each pen has a floor 
surface of 480 feet and gives ample accommodation to 100 
hens. All of the hens in these two open front houses, 
in flocks of 50 or 100, averaged laying 144 eggs each last year, 
and the birds were in excellent health. The front curtains 
were open all of the time every day, except the very stormiest 
in winter. 

While the same plan is common to all of these open 
front houses, the width has been increased in each succeed- 
ing one built. The first house was 10 feet wide, the second 
12 feet, the third 16 feet in width. The laying and breed- 
ing house at Go- Well Farm, to be described, is 20 feet wide 
and is more satisfactory than the narrower houses, because 
of economy in cost and its greater housing capacity in pro- 
portion to its length, which reduces the labor required in 
caring for the birds, by having them in square rooms rather 
than in long narrow ones. 

The poultry plant at the Station is devoted to experi- 
ment' and research work. There are many questions 
relating directly to commercial poultry operations that 
are left untouched because the Station plant is already 
taxed to its capacity. 

When the Go- Well poultry farm was established last 
year, the opportunities were so good for studying poultry 
subjects on a purely commercial plant, where the entire 
energies of the place are devoted to this one business specialty 



48 EGG MONEY 

that arrangements were made with its owner which enables 
the Station to study the practical application of many of 
its own findings on an extensive, intensive business plant. 
Of the hundred acres of land comprising the farm, thirty 
acres immediately at, and overlooking the village of Orono 
was fallowed and tilled for a year, then seeded to clover 
and grasses, in order to bring it into good condition for 
poultry farming. 

A Laying House for 2,000 Hens. 

During the summer of 1905 a laying house was built 
to accommodate 2,000 hens. It is 20 feet wide and 400 
feet long. It is on the same general plan as houses Nos. 
2 and 3 at the Experiment Station. House No. 2 is 12 
feet wide; house No. 3 is 16 feet wide, and this one is 20 
feet wide. The widths have been increased in the last 
2 houses, as experience has shown the advisability of it. 
At first it was thought the houses should be narrow so they 
might dry out readily, but the widest house dries out satis- 
factorily as the opening in the front is placed high up, 
so that -in the shortest winter days the sun shines in on the 
floor to the back. 

The economy in the cost of the wide house over the nar- 
row ones, when space is. considered, is evident. The front 
and back walls in the narrow house cost about as much per 
lineal foot as those in the wide house, and the greatly increas- 
ed floor space is secured by building in a strip of floor and 
roof, running lengthwise of the building. The carrying 
capacity of a house 20 feet wide is 66 per cent greater than 
that of a house 12 feet wide, and it is secured by building 
additional floor space only. The walls, doors and windows 
remain the same as in the narrow house, except that the front 
wall is made a little higher. Three sills which are 6 inches 
square run lengthwise of the house, the central one support- 
ing the floor timbers in the middle. They rest on a rough 
stone wall, high enough from the ground so that dogs can 
go under the building to look after rats and skunks that 
might incline to make their homes there. The stone wall 
rests on the surface of the ground. The floor timbers are 
2x8 inches in size and rest wholly on top of the sills. All 



HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS 49 

wall studs rest on the sills; the front ones are 8 feet long and 
the back ones 6 feet 6 inches long. The roof is unequal in 
width, the ridge being in 8 feet from the front wall. The 
height of the ridge from the sill to the extreme top is 12 feet 
6 inches. All studding is 2 x 4 inches in size, and the rafters 
are 2x5. The building is boarded with inch boards and 






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A Section of the "House for Two Thousand Hens," Described by 
G. M. Gowell. 

papered and shingled with good cedar shingles on walls 
and roof. The floor is of two thicknesses of hemlock 
boards, which break joints well in the laying. 
Tight Partitions Separate the Pens. 
The building is divided by tight board partitions into 
20 sections, each section being 20 feet long. All of the 
sections are alike in construction and arrangement. The 
front side of each section has two windows of 12 lights of 
10 x 12 glass, screwed on, . upright, 2 feet 8 inches from 
each end of the room. They are 3 feet above the floor. 
The space between the windows is 8 feet 10 inches long and 
the top part of it down from the plate, 3}4 feet, is not 
boarded, but left open to be covered by the cloth curtain 
when necessary. This leaves a tight wall, 3 feet 10 inches high, 
extending from the bottom of the opening down to the floor, 
which prevents the wind from blowing directly on to the 
birds when they are on the floor. A door is made in this 



50 EGG MONEY 

part of the front wall for the attendant to pass through 
when the curtain is open. A door 16 inches high and 18 
inches wide is arranged under one of the windows for the 
birds to pass through to yards in front. It is placed close 
down to the floor. A similar door is in the center of the back 
wall to admit them to the rear when that yard is used. 

A light frame, made of 1 x 3 inch pine strips and 1x6 
inch cross ties, is covered with 10-ounce white duck and 
hinged at the top of the front opening, which it covers 
when closed down. This curtain is easily turned up into 
the room where it is caught and held by swinging hooks 
until it is released. 

The roost platform is made tight and extends along the 
whole length of the room against the back wall. It is 4 
feet 10 inches wide and 3 feet above the floor, high enough 
so that a person can get under it comfortably when neces- 
sary to catch or handle the birds. There are three roosts 
framed together in two 10-feet sections. They are one foot 
above the platform and hinged to the back wall so they 
may be turned up out of the way when the platform is being 
cleaned. The back roost is 12 inches from the wall and 
the spaces between the next two are 16 inches. They are 
made of 2 x 3 spruce stuff, placed on edge, with the upper 
corners rounded off. The roosting closet is shut off from 
the rest of the room by curtains, similar to the one de- 
scribed above. For convenience in handling, there are two 
of them, each 10 feet long. They are 3 feet wide and are 
hinged at the top so as to be turned out and hooked up. 
The space above this curtain is ceiled up and in it are two 
openings each 3 feet long, and 6 inches wide, with slides for 
ventilating the closet when necessary. There is a door in 
every partition, placed 5 inches out from the edge of the 
roost platform. They are 3 feet wide and 7 feet high; 
they are divided in the middle, lengthwise, and each half 
is hung with double acting spring hinges, allowing them 
to swing open both ways and close. 

Construction of Nests and Feed Troughs. 

Ten nests are placed against the partition in each end 
of the room, in two tiers. They are of ordinary form, each 
nesting space being one foot wide, one foot high and 2 feet 



HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS 



51 



long, with the entrances near the partition, away from the 
light, and with hinged covers in front for the removal of 
the eggs. Each section of five nests can be taken out, 
without disturbing anything else, and cleaned and returned. 

















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Interior of One of the Pens in the "House for Two Thousand Hens," 
Described by G. M. Goweil. 

Troughs are used for feeding the mixtures of dry meals, 
shell, bone, grit and charcoal. The bottoms are made of 
boards, 7 inches wide; the ends being of the same width 
and 18 inches high. The back is of boards and the cover 
is of the same material and slopes forward sufficiently so 
the birds cannot stay on it. A strip 5 inches wide is nailed 
along the front edge of the bottom to make the side of the 
trough. Pieces of lath are nailed upright on the front, 
2 inches apart, between which the hens reach through for 
the feed. A strip 2 inches wide is fastened to the front of 
the trough at an angle of about 45 degrees to catch the fine 
meal that the birds pull out and would otherwise waste. 
They clear it up from this little catchall and so waste is 
mostly prevented. 

Feeding by Rail. 

Two lines. of 4x4 inch spruce are arranged as an elevated 



52 EGG MONEY 

track above the doors. The track extends the entire length 
of the building and being faced with narrow steel bands on 
top, a suspended car is readily pushed along, even when 
heavily loaded. The platform of the car is 2 x 8 feet in size 
and is elevated a foot above the floor. All food and water is 
carried through the building on this car. The ten iron 
baskets, into which the roost platforms are cleaned every 
morning, are put on the car and collections made as the car 
passes through the pens to the far end of the building, 400 
feet away, where the roost cleanings are dumped in the 
manure shed. As the car is pushed along, the guard at the 
front end comes in contact with the doors and pushes them 
open and they remain so until the car has passed through, 
when the spring hinges force them to close again. This 
car is a great labor saver, as it does away with nearly all 
lugging by the workman. It has enabled one man to 
take good care of the 2,000 hens from November to March, 
except on Saturdays, when the litter has been removed and 
renewed by other men. 

At one end of the building there is a temporary food ana 
water house for dish washing and scalding and where the 
car remains when not being used. 

An Outside, Elevated Walk. 

There is a walk outside of the building extending along 
its entire front. It is 4 feet wide and is made of 2-inch 
plank; it is elevated 2 feet above the floor of the building, 
which allows the doors, through which the birds pass to 
the front yards, to be opened and closed without interference. 
The door which opens out of each room through the curtain 
section, is above the outside walk and necessitates stepping 
up or down when passing through, which is not a very serious 
objection, as the door is used but little in the daily work, 
but mostly in cleaning out and renewing the floor litter. 
A guard of wire poultry netting, a foot wide along the out- 
side of the walk prevents the birds from flying from the yards 
up to the walk. The advantages of the elevated walk over 
one on a level with the sill of the building is that it is 
unobstructed by gates, which would be necessary were 
the low walk used, to prevent the birds from passing from 
one yard to another. 



FEEDING THE LAYING HENS. 



Feed Fattening Foods Sparingly — Green Food and Grit Are 
Essential — A Good Mash — The Best Grain is Cheapest to 
Feed — No Success Without Fresh Air. 



By Victor D. Caneday. 

We are now entering upon a season of the year when the 
question of feeding is a very important one, and while it is a 
fact that we cannot write any definite rules that will hold good 
in all cases, still by giving our experience we may benefit 
those who as yet have little confidence in their ability to feed 
and care for a flock of hens so as to obtain reasonably good 
results in winter egg production. In fact, in the first place 
we have learned that while a variety of food is desirable, 
marked changes in kind and quantity of food is one of the 
most certain things to cripple the egg record. The less 
changes and the more gradual the changes (when such are 
necessary) that one makes in either the care or feeding of 
a flock, the better the egg record will be. Another thing, 
our work with the biddies has taught us that ordinarily 
there is more danger of overfeeding with soft foods than 
with whole grains, therefore, we are very careful to keep 
within safe bounds as to the quantity of soft food given 
the fowls. To prevent overfeeding with grain, the whole 
grain should all be scattered in a litter in the scratching sheds 
or rooms so as to compel the hens to work for what they 
obtain. There is no one thing the equal of exercise to keep 
a flock in fine, healthy condition. 

Avoid Fattening Foods. 

To prevent the hens becoming too fat we avoid feeding 
fattening foods such as corn, barley, buckwheat, etc. We 
feed more oats than anything else to the mature hens, as 
it is the very best grain for egg production we have. We 
begin in the molting season to feed a little wheat with the 
oats and in winter feed about one-third wheat and two- 



54 EGG MONEY 

thirds oats, but in summer weather we feed nearly altogether 
of the oats. Of course one must be governed by the con- 
dition of a flock which depends considerably upon the kind 
of range they have. We endeavor to have all our stock 
on good grass range in the summer time and keep them 
well supplied with green food such as cabbages, mangels, 
sugar beets, cut clover, etc., in the winter months. One 
thing that is never allowed to becQme empty is the grit 
box. Perfect- digestion goes a long way towards success 
in feeding and good sharp grit is an important essential in 
accomplishing that end with poultry. 

Corn is Fed in the Mash. 

The only place for corn in our bill of fare for the laying 
stock is in the morning mash, the ground grain of which is 
composed one-half corn and oats and one-half bran by 
measure. We formerly used shorts or middlings, but never 
seemed to obtain as good results as we have when using the 
bran and ground feed. Bran is a fine regulator and we 
quite often, when the flock is showing a lack of appetite, 
or at times when conditions of weather have been trying, 
give them a warm bran mash — never give food to fowls hot. 
Bran scalded is quite laxative and is a great aid in keeping 
the fowls from becoming constipated or the system clogged 
with overfeeding. The foundation of the mash is made up 
of potato parings, table scraps, small potatoes, or any 
vegetables available, thoroughly cooked, chopped fine 
and mixed with the ground grains to a crumbly consistency. 
We mix the mash as dry and crumbly as we can and never 
feed it wet. 

The Quantity of Food Required. 

We feed at the rate of a quart of whole grain to each six 
fowls, and one large iron spoonful of soft food to every two 
fowls per day. One must note if the flock is getting too 
little or too much by examining the scratching shed floors 
occasionally and watching the condition and appetite of 
the hens. However, we find there is little need of any very 
great variation from these amounts, but no one will be able 
to measure out feed to hens with a machine and obtain good 
results. Every flock needs watching, and if we were to 



FEEDING THE LAYING HENS 55 

hire everything else done, the feeding we would feel com- 
pelled to personally attend to. We formerly fed green 
cut bone, but had so much difficulty in obtaining it, and in 
the summer time it was so often spoiled that we have been 
using meat meal, which is no more expensive and as far 
as we can see, from about a year's use, accomplishes fully 
as good results both in health, vigor and egg production. 

Nothing Equal to Oats. 

There are some people foolish enough to believe that 
oats are liable to injure fowls by swelling and packing in 
and piercing their crops. We have yet to find the person 
who has ever known personally of such a thing happening, 
and in all the time we have fed whole, dry oats we have 
never had the slightest reason to believe the oats were 
any more injurious to their crops than wheat, and we feed 
nearly all whole oats to our hens. There is no whole grain 
equal to oats as an egg producer, and when the poultry 
keepers get to feeding it more generally we shall not hear 
so many complaints of overfat hens and poor layers. 

One important consideration in the feeding of oats is to 
feed good, plump, heavy grain. The quality of oats is not 
so apparent to the inexperienced as would be the quality of 
other -grains. We endeavor to always buy the heaviest 
oats possible and all grain of first quality we consider the 
cheapest in the end. 

In the conclusion of these thoughts on feeding for eggs, 
we desire to say that some of the most common causes of 
failure in obtaining eggs in the winter is lack of fresh air. 
The hens should be allowed to run out whenever the weather 
is warm enough to not freeze their combs and the houses 
should be aired out thoroughly in the warm part of the day, 
every day during the winter except when it is so cold that 
it is entirely impractical. We keep our house open (have 
wire netting, one inch mesh, on windows) the year round 
just as much as the weather will permit. If these directions 
are followed with a properly constructed house, free from 
drafts, and the fowls are not allowed to crowd too much 
on the roosts, colds and roup will be unknown diseases, 
except they be introduced through infected birds. 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS. 



How Several Prominent Poultry Breeders Care for and 
Feed Their Fowls to Obtain the Greatest Number of 
Eggs in the Season of High Prices — A Symposium. 



Methods of Feeding That Are Effective During the Cold 

Minnesota Winters. 

By E. S. Person. 

While I have never made any great effort to get my 
hens to lay early in the winter, from all my experience I 
know that it can be done, right here, during our cold Minne- 
sota winters, with the proper care, housing and food. I 
have been mostly concerned in producing strong, fertile 
eggs for myself and my customers after the first of Janu- 
ary, and, while in some years eggs will be better than in 
others, I have never had very much trouble in accomplish- 
ing that result. 

My methods are very simple and right here let me say 
that I do not believe in using a lot of patent, so-called 
"egg foods." I do not doctor my fowls very much and do 
not have to. I feed good whole grain which is always thrown 
in deep litter, with occasionally a mash of ground food 
and steamed cut clover. After the grass is gone and hens 
and pullets are taken from their range in the fall, it is nec- 
essary to provide a goodly supply of green food in some 
form. We are using for this purpose, sugar beets, cabbages, 
turnips, onions, small potatoes and even the peelings from 
the vegetables and apples used in the kitchen. 

If eggs are the only object, I should say feed this mash 
every evening an hour or so before dark. Let them have all 
they will eat up clean and remove the troughs after the 
fowls have gone on the roosts at night. For the morning feed 
there is nothing like whole oats in deep scratching litter. 



58 EGG MONEY 

At noon give a small feed of whole wheat and about twice? 
a week this may be changed to whole or cracked corn. 
Barley may be substituted for oats part of the time, if de- 
sired, but the birds do not take to it quite as well. Green 
ground bone should be fed about twice a week, or, if that 
is not obtainable, beef scraps should be before them all the 
time. It is of course absolutely necessary to supply them 
with grit and oyster shell, or its equivalent, and pure water 
at all times. My fowls also get all the milk they will con- 
sume every other day. 

My houses are built on the continuous laying house plan, 
the pens are from eight by ten to twelve by fourteen feet 
in area, some are double boarded and stuffed with wild hay, 
sides and ceiling; others have tarred paper with drop siding 
on outside, and patent lath, plastered on the inside. All 
have earth floors with stone or concrete foundations ex- 
tending into the ground from eight to twelve inches. Every- 
thing is kept as clean as we can keep it. All the houses 
are whitewashed inside, and the roosts, etc., are sprayed 
with lico killer once a week. The houses all face the south 
and the windows are open whenever the weather will per- 
mit. No male birds are allowed with the hens until I am 
ready to save eggs for hatching and mate up the breeding 
pens in February. 



Supper by Lantern Light is a Feature of this Method. 

By M. W. Baldwin. 

I will own up right now that specializing for winter eggs: 
is not in my line; at the same time I generally put aside 
one pen for fresh eggs and from that pen always get what 
I'm after. This particular pen is generally made up of a 
lot of early hatched pullets, and occasionally a few hens of 
pronounced laying ability. The house they occupy is about 
the poorest in my establishment, but is patched up for win- 
ter so that it is free from drafts, and their roosting quarters 
are double-walled, papered and curtained, so they sleep 
warm. During the day they have the run of a big, dry 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 52 

room with loose dust floor, bedded about a foot, or more, 
deep with alfalfa; into this litter is scattered grain and grit. 
Every night after I have had my supper and enjoyed a 
cigar, we go the rounds. Our pen of laj^ers gets a late sup- 
per of warm corn, and twice a week a good feed of raw 
beef (beef lungs); they also get a drink of water that, has 
had the chill taken off. 

Anyone who has not tried this night method of feeding, 
will doubt its usefulness; but if you wait and consider the 
long night and the short day you will see how very neces- 
sary an extra meal is, and it will astonish you how quickly 
the birds learn to watch for the lantern. In fact they are 
generally off the perch and waiting my coming long before 
I get to their quarters. Another great advantage is that 
the birds get to be remarkably tame, and the egg poulterer 
knows what that means. If I'm short of accommodations 
for males I allow one in that pen, but always thought 
that the hens laid better without the company of a chanti- 
cleer than with one. 

As to what I feed I can give no formula, for I have to 
depend on the feed store, but I give all the variety that is 
possible, making wheat the staple. I feed no mashes or 
condiments. 

Watering is the hardest problem, for even in my _ double 
walled, plastered houses, drinking founts freeze; the birds 
are given a drink at noon and get a good drink again at 
night, but I am hoping that some clever person will devise 
a simple but serviceable drinking fount that can be heated 
sufficiently to keep the drinks from freezing in our coldest 
weather. 

So for winter eggs, I allow plenty of room and light, a 
warm sleeping place, an extra feed by lamplight, and a 
social chat of course. Have kept no records in late years 
of what my egg pen does for me during the winter; but 
a dozen pullets will, I believe, average pretty close to seven 
eggs a day, handled this way. We manage to get along 
without buying any eggs all winter, and I really prefer 
that my stock birds reserve their energies for spring busi- 
ness. A hen that will lay 150 eggs in 160 days during the 
spring and early summer is much more valuable to me than 



60 EGG MONEY 

one that lays 30 eggs in 60 days during winter and keeps 
up much the same gait during the rest of the year. 



Warm Houses and Good Feeding Make Hens Lay in Cold 

Weather. 
By S.V.Johns. 

I give my birds the best of care during September and 
October; I feed oil meal and crushed sunflower seed during 
the molting season, but no meat of any kind, and I let 
my hens rest while molting. After the molting is over I 
feed during the month of November, in the morning, a 
warm mash of corn, oats and bran, ground, with a little of 
some good prepared poultry food and some beef scraps. 
During the middle of the day I feed plenty of cabbage, and 
in the evening I feed wheat which puts their blood in good 
condition and improves their flesh. 

During the winter we feed wheat for brearfast which 
is thrown in a litter of straw, a foot thick, in the scratch- 
ing shed and the work of scratching it out keeps the fowls 
warm. I hang a head of cabbage in each pen of twenty 
birds. I use a green bone cutter and give them green 
cut bone three times a week. For the evening meal I 
give a little shelled corn. We have used these methods for 
years and have always had eggs to sell all winter and the 
birds have always been healthy. 

Some may desire to know about the construction of my 
poultry house. It was built with a shed roof having a three 
foot pitch. The outside of the frame work is covered with 
tar-paper, with drop-siding to the weather. Tar-paper is 
also placed, on the inside of the frame work and ceiled over 
with boards. The roof is covered with rough boards, then 
with a layer of tar-paper and shingled, the shingles being 
laid five inches to the weather. Board floors are used. 



Methods That Make Winners and Layers in South Dakota. 
By A. J. Keith. 

My winter laying house is very warm, boarded on inside 
and outside of the studding. There is tar-paper on the 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 



61 



outside which is in turn covered with matched siding and 
well painted. The house faces south, has plenty of light, 
storm door and storm windows. A five-foot board plat- 
form extends in the north side of the house from east to 
west. This is screened in, the nests rest upon it and the 
eggs are gathered without going among the birds. The 
roosts are one and one-half feet above the floor of the coop 
and under the platform, with droppings board under the* 
roosts which is kept clean and has fine ashes frequently 
scattered on it. The dirt floor is cleaned once a week and 




Buildings of a Village Poultry Keeper who Secures Enough Profit to 
Pay the Family's Meat and Grocery Bills. 

fresh straw put in to the depth of nine inches, making a 
fine scratching place. Once a week a mixture of kerosene, 
napthaline flakes and crude carbolic acid is sprayed on 
roosts, droppings boards and walls. Twenty-below-zero 
weather outside will not freeze water where the birds roost. 
The morning feed is oats scattered in litter. About 
twice a week a hot mash of boiled potatoes, vegetables, 
bran, shorts and barley flour, occasionally seasoned with 
salt and pepper, is fed. At noon I feed a light feed of 
wheat scattered in the litter. Ground fresh bone is given 
three times a week, about two and one half ounces a week 
per bird. At evening I feed either wheat, barley or corn 
and on very cold nights a hot mash, same as described for 
feeding in the morning, but never two hot mashes on the 
same day. Occasionally the corn is fed warm. Charcoal, 
shells and grit are kept before the birds always. Cabbages 



62 EGG MONEY 

are hung from the ceiling where the birds are obliged to 
jump to reach them. 

In cold weather the birds are allowed to run out but 
little and then only during the middle of the day and in 
yards with board protection on north. I sometimes give 
them warm water early in the morning. The amount of 
food fed varies according to condition of each pen. Ven- 
tilation is important: I use openings at the top of the coop 
and also at the bottom. 

Under the above ration and treatment, eight o'clock on 
a twenty-below-zero morning will often find 75 per cent 
of the birds on the nests doing their duty. Last February 
I mated one pen and commenced saving eggs on the twen- 
tieth. The first of March I sent 116 eggs to Minnesota. 
These eggs were gathered twice a day ftfr the temperature 
was below zero all the time; 108 eggs were reported fertile. 
The warmth of the coop is apparent from the fact that the 
eggs were not chilled. 

I might say that each year I cull very closely, keeping 
only the best shaped young birds for layers and those of the 
old ones that have proved layers as pullets. 

Vigilant care and kind treatment bring a high percentage 
of eggs each day. 



A Laying Strain and Good Care are Necessary for Success — 
Lice Spoil the Profits. 
By Mrs. M. E. Ellison. 

In order to succeed in this work there are certain things 
that must be right. First, the person that has the care of 
the fowls; second, the fowls; third, the houses; fourth, the 
foods. To begin with, a person that does not love our 
feathered friends had better find some other occupation, as 
the birds very soon know who their friends are. 

I do not think there is as much difference in the breeds 
of fowls as in the strain. So be sure you have a laying 
strain; one that has been bred that way. Get them hatched 
early so they will be well matured and ready for business 
before cold weather sets in. I keep Buff Rocks and Single 
Comb Buff Leghorns and find that March and April hatched 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 63 

Hocks are the ones that make the winter layers of that 
breed. The Leghorns are all right hatched in April and 
May as they mature sooner. Keep them growing, do not 
let them get stunted for they never fully recover from it. 

I have never found it difficult to get eggs in winter. 
When I have done my part as I should, biddie has always 
done hers. I know when I am* not bringing in the much 
desired basket of eggs that some of the necessary ration 
has been neglected. A hen can no more lay eggs without 
the necessary material for their production than a cow 
can give milk if fed on dry hay alone. 

Look well to what you feed, and how you feed it, and 
watch results. I have had very satisfactory results from 
the following method of feeding during the short cold days 
in winter. At about three P. M., I feed warm grain which 
is principally wheat, with barley and corn at times for a 
change, in sufficient quantity to answer for supper and 
early breakfast. Then about nine A. >M. they get a warm 
luncheon, which consists of one-fourth cut clover, scalded 
and steamed over night, one eighth corn meal, one eighth 
shorts, one fourth cut vegetables. One fourth green bone, 
ground, goes with this three times a week; the other threo 
days I add enough shorts, corn meal and bran to jake its 
place and moisten with milk if I have it, if not, water. I 
make it crumbly, not soft. Sundays this is omitted and a 
variety of grain takes its place. This to shorten as much 
as may be the time required to do the work of caring for 
the flock on the first day of the week and omitting the 
mash seems to have no bad effect. 

There are many little details in the care of the biddies 
that must not be neglected; see to it that they are free from 
vermin that worry arid torment them if allowed to live; 
you cannot have many eggs and lice at the same time. Give 
them plenty of clean water with the chill taken off, all the 
grit, oyster shell and charcoal they want. All grain should 
be fed in a litter; straw or leaves are excellent for this ma- 
terial. They need exercise or they will get fat and lazy. 
Last but not least, are the houses. They need not be ex- 
pensive, but warm and comfortable, with plenty of sunlight 
and fresh air, but no drafts. Do not make the mistake of 



64 EGG MONEY 

crowding one hundred into a coop on y large enough for 
fifty. 



Feeding for Winter Eggs is a Simple Problem— Proper Food, 
Exercise and Warm Drinking Water Are the Features. 
By W. F. Mautz. 

The high prices that are paid for eggs throughout the 
Northwest during the winter months, make an inducement 
for every owner of a flock of fowls to endeavor to get as 
many as possible. To do this, the fowls must be of a 
strain that are bred to lay, just as Jersey cattle are bred 
to increase the yield of milk, and fast horses are bred 
for increased speed. This can be done only by carefully 
selecting as breeders your best winter layers, of good shape, 
size and color, and mating them with vigorous, well devel- 
oped sons of your very best winter layers. A permanent 
increase in the egg yield will be observed when this method 
of breeding is followed. 

Feeding for winter eggs is not the complicated work some 
would have us believe, in fact it is very simple, if certain 
rules are observed, and we have found it just as easy to 
feed along scientific lines as to feed in a haphazard sort 
of way. The morning feed consists of two parts oats 
and one part wheat which is well scattered in litter about 
a foot deep; this is done in the evening after the fowls have 
gone to roost, so as to be ready for them as soon as they 
care to go to work in the morning, our object being to make 
them work for every kernel that they get. This gives 
them plenty of exercise which is very necessary in winter 
when the fowls are kept in confinement more or less. At 
noon we feed a mash which is made up of ground oats, bran, 
shorts and wheat middlings; for green food we use cut 
clover about one-fourth in bulk, which is thoroughly steamed 
for several hours, after which it is all mixed into a mash 
to which is added enough salt to season it and hot water, 
enough to make a dry crumbly mash, not sloppy. All 
table and all vegetable scraps go into this mash, enough 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 65 

of which is fed so that they eat it up clean in fifteen to 
twenty minutes. In addition to this mash we feed barley 
well shaken into the litter to make them work for it so as to 
give them plenty of exercise to digest the mash. 

We watch our litter very carefully, and if upon ex- 



A Section of the Poultry House of W. F. Mautz, Described in the 
Accompanying Article. 

amination we find any grain upon the floor we feed less, 
and if none is found we feed heavier, but do not pay any 
attention to it if we find any grain under the litter after 
the evening meal, as it is our intention to send the fowls 
to roost with full crops. In the evening before they go to 
roost we feed wheat well shaken into the litter, all that 
they will eat. A hen in order to produce eggs in winter 
must be fed enough to make up the wear and tear of the 
body and have something left for the production of eggs. 
We do not believe in over feeding neither do we believe 
in starving them; any person acquainted with his flock 



66 EGG MONEY 

can tell at a glance upon entering the yards about what 
food they will require. Cabbages are hung up for them 
to pick at and fine chopped potatoes are fed raw; beef 
scraps, granulated bone, charcoal, oyster shell, bran and 
grit are always kept before them in hoppers and during 
cold weather plenty of warm water is furnished them fre- 
quently. We wish to lay special emphasis on this for we 
find when we analyze an egg that a good sized hen's egg 
weighs about two ounces, and is about 64 parts water and 
in order to produce eggs, a fowl must have the material 
necessary. As it is necessary to gather the eggs quite 
often during the severe cold weather to prevent freezing 
the attendant collecting the eggs always carries warm 
water to replenish any fountains that are dry, or are be- 
ginning to freeze. Rock salt is also before the fowls where 
they can get at it at will, and right here let me say that I 
consider it just as necessary to supply your fowls with salt 
as it is to supply any other live stock. 

This is the method of feeding that was followed the past 
winter, and we were successful in having our egg basket 
well filled during the severest winter weather. This winter 
we feed in much the same manner. For the morning meal 
we take equal parts of wheat, oats and barley, at noon 
mixture of wheat, oats, kaffir corn, cracked corn, millet 
and buckwheat, and the evening meal consists of small 
cracked corn. For the mash we use one of the prepared 
mash foods made by a reliable poultry supply house, to 
which is added all of the table and vegetable scraps, also 
steamed cut clover. 

Our laying houses are shed roof structures well built, 
seven feet high in the front and four feet high in the rear, 
facing the south, with a board floor, divided into pens 
eight by sixteen feet, by board and wire netting parti- 
tions, two pens to a house. These pens will each accommo- 
date a flock of twenty-five fowls and keep them comfortable. 
The roof is made of a good grade of matched lumber, which 
is covered with a good grade of prepared roofing. There 
are four windows in the front of each pen with the lower 
sash stationary and the upper sash hung with hinges at 
the top so that the sash will swing out below for ventila- 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 67 

tion; the doors are placed beneath the windows, and near 
the floor; they are three by five feet, hung in the same 
manner as the windows so they will swing out below and 
make a shelter or awning; this enables us to air the 
house (even with strong wind from the south, the wind is 
hardly noticeable in the house) and permits the fowls to 
pass in and out from the house at pleasure. The roosts are 
all removable so as to facilitate the cleaning of the dropping 
boards, which are cleaned daily, and the fight against ver- 
min, for keeping the house clean is a very essential thing. 
The nest boxes are placed below the dropping boards, 
with a hinged door in the front which drops down, through 
which the eggs are gathered, the fowls entering the nest 
boxes from behind. A muslin curtain is hung in front of 
the roosts which can be let down during the night in severe 
cold weather. We also have curtains on the inside of the 
hinged sash which can be used when necessary; one or 
both of the sash in each pen are kept partly open when it 
is not too stormy, and this in connection with the curtains 
gives us a well ventilated house and one in which fowls will 
thrive. 



"Separate the Sexes, Provide Meat and Green Foods and 

Plenty of Sunlight," is the Advice of Mr. Bates. 

By R. G. Bates. 

Most people, who keep poultry, desire a liberal quantity 
of eggs, especially in winter when the price is high. In 
order to obtain the best results get birds from a good lay- 
ing strain, as they have the qualities bred in them. After 
the second laying season, a female's most profitable age 
is over and she should then make room for the younger 
stock. As soon as the cockerels get old enough to annoy 
the pullets they ought to be separated until the breeding 
season commences, as they annoy the females which will 
not lay as well as when separated. . The old males will 
probably fight if penned together, or with the cockerels, 
and any valuable birds should be penned separately. 

Next in importance is the food. Fowls will not thrive on 
an unvaried diet, they must have a variety. There are any 
number of , good grains which can be fed, for example: 



68 EGG MONEY 

wheat, corn (cracked), oats, barley, rye and millet. You 
can also feed buckwheat, sunflower seeds, peas and beans 
and also, rice for a change. Give them all they will eat 
readily; circumstances alter the amount. 

Besides grain, the fowls need green and animal food. 
For the latter prepared beef scraps can be used and should 
be before them at all times in hoppers. Table scraps 
are also good and milk in any form is excellent but if very 
sour it should be sweetened with a little common soda. 

For green food, clover hay is good; some people steam 
it before using, while others feed it in the natural condi- 
tion. Dried lawn clippings are a good substitute for the 
clover hay. Cabbage or beets are good for a change and 
now and then chopped onions will be relished. 

Be liberal with the water, have it fresh -and warm it 
slightly in very cold weather. Sharp grit and oyster shells 
are very essential and should be kept before them always. 
The former is for digestive purposes and the latter to sup- 
ply material for egg-shells. Charcoal is very good as a 
bowel regulator and blood purifier and can be fed in hop- 
pers constantly. 

Always feed the grain in a litter of straw, hay, leaves or 
chaff which ought to be found in every poultry house and 
should be changed whenever it gets dirty. The exercise 
obtained by the fowls scratching for the grain will help to 
keep them warm and will also fit them for laying by work- 
ing off the surplus flesh, besides being a help to the system 
generally. 

The house should be moderately warm, but I do not be- 
lieve in artificial heat. Don't be afraid that you are going 
to freeze everything if you leave the windows partly open 
for a little while. Never allow the drafts to blow on the 
fowls as they are disastrous to the health of the birds. 
This can be prevented by having a cloth window which ought 
to be taken out when the sun is bright and warm. After 
all the sun is one of the best tonics. 

Never crowd fowls or they will not lay well and will be 
liable to many diseases. Each bird ought to have at least 
four square feet of floor space and five or six is better if 
you have the room. Have plenty of sunlight in all parts 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 69 

and corners. Be sure and have the windows low enough so 
that the birds can have a sun bath. 

Save some of the common road dust in summer for the 
dust bath for it will tend to keep the birds free from lice. 
Last, but not least, keep everything clean. Clean out the 
houses as frequently as possible. Keep the water dish 
washed and scald it once in a while. Dust the birds oc- 
casionally with a good lice powder, for an ounce of preven- 
tive is worth a pound of cure. 



Good Houses, Adequate Ventilation, Good Food and Enough 

of it, Make Healthy, Profitable Fowls. 

By F. H. Williams. 

Having been asked to explain in detail my method of 
housing, caring for and feeding my Cornish and White 
Indians for winter eggs, I will describe one of the houses 
first. In size it is 24 x 12, eight feet high in front, and 
six in the rear. This house is built on a solid cement 
foundation, raised one foot above the ground, has a smooth 
cement floor making it absolutely rat proof. The walls 
are made of rough boards, tar paper and drop siding out- 
side of 2 x 4 uprights; on the inside it is lined with tar 
paper and sealed with matched lumber, leaving a four- 
inch dead air space between the walls. This makes the 
building absolutely wind proof and free from drafts. 

The front has four large windows six feet apart made 
of two sashes of six lights each, the lower sash being fitted 
so it can be raised or lowered. Above each window is an 
air space eight inches high and the width of the window, 
covered with white muslin. These are open both night 
and day. Covering the lower sash of each window is 
another piece of muslin securely tacked to the sash frame 
except one corner which can be folded back. During 
the day, the lower sash is raised, the corner of muslin pulled 
up and pinned and I have a muslin front house. The 
fowls go in and out through the window, over the sill, except 
on stormy or extra cold days, when the muslin is not raised, 
although the window is. At night the windows are closed 



70 EGG MONEY 

and ventilation is provided by the openings over each win- 
dow. Roosts are placed at the extreme back. No drop- 
ping broads are used as I consider them an inducement for 
laziness on the part of whoever takes care of the birds. 
Partitions are of wire, except two feet at the bottom, which 
is of boards, to keep males and obstreperous hens from 
fighting. 

Along the entire length of the building, at the top of 
the back wall, are single coops for training quarters for 
show birds and surplus males. Underneath these coops 
are the roosts, made of two four by fours, with the edges 
rounded. Nest boxes are arranged along the sides of the 
pens, as are also water cans and feed, oyster shell, char- 
coal and grit boxes. Dust boxes, good and deep, are 
also provided. Absolute cleanliness is the rul'e. All 
scratching material, which is deep in the pens, is removed 
once a week and the floors, roosts, coops and sides of pens 
are sprinkled or sprayed with a good lice killing and dis- 
infecting liquid. New litter consisting of oat-straw, tim- 
othy hay sif tings, and a bushel basketful of tobacco stems 
is placed in each pen. Whitewash is used as needed. The 
same treatment is given the two other houses, one with 
a dirt floor, the other with board floor. It is needless 
to say that there are no lice or mites about the premises. 

In feeding, dry bran is before the birds in self feeders 
at all times, so they can help themselves. Bran I con- 
sider one of the very best of foods and one would be sur- 
prised at the large quantity consumed. The morning feed 
consists of oats and millet scattered in the litter the night 
before and buried deep. This keeps them busy until I 
return from the office at noon, when table scraps, fresh 
cut beef scraps and a little wheat and cracked corn is fed. 
At night whole corn is the meal and the birds go to bed 
with full crops. A mash consisting of bran, cornmeal 
and a little linseed oil is fed occasionally, but not often 
as I much prefer the dry feed. Cabbage is the prin- 
cipal green food and a head is almost always in each pen, 
stuck on a spike just high enough to make the fowls jump 
for it. Fresh cut bone is also fed three times a week. I have 
no certain amount of grain to feed, but if the birds seem 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 



71 



to have a little keener appetite than usual, they get more. 
I find feeding this way that the fowls are always in good 
condition being neither too fat nor too lean, seem to be 
contented, always singing, making the litter fly and laying 
a good supply of eggs right through the winter. 

This system might not do with some breeds, but with 
the Cornish and White Indians, I find it O. K. Three 
things are necessary to the welfare of any breed if one 




A Well Built, Double Wall House Which Could riot be Sufficiently Ven- 
tilated to Prevent Dampness. 

expects them to do well, and these are: first, absolute 
cleanliness; second, good quarters; third, a good, generous 
supply of food and water, grit, oyster shells and charcoal. 
I firmly believe that a flock of hens or pullets to do well 
must have all these. If they have the food they want, 
you will hear them singing their little song almost every 
day, but you won't if your flock is kept half-starved all 
day until just before dark. The members of the human 
race I -notice want their food regularly and enough of it 
and I think our dumb animals and birds have just that 



72 EGG MONEY 

same inclination. Therefore mine, all of them, dogs, cats, 
horses and poultry, always have enough. 



"A Heavy Egg Yield is Not Difficult to Obtain. 
By A. B. Williams. 

I begin in September to prepare my hens for winter lay- 
ing, first I shut off the feed from the old hens (only give 
one third their regular feed) for two weeks. Then I feed 
|hea vy for a spell, to start all the hens that are backward 
about molting to molt; that gets all the hens in good shape 
to start laying by the last of November. By that time the 
hens are all housed in a good warm house with plenty of 
hay and straw over head, so that frost never gathers. I 
also have double doors and windows; they do not know it 
is winter. 

I feed mostly wnole grain; wheat, barley and some corn, 
with a supply of cabbage, beets and small potatoes always 
on hand. The fowls are seldom allowed out on the frozen 
grouifol, but the doors have screens and are left open on all 
bright days, which keeps the birds in good health. Pul- 
lets hatched in May should be housed in their winter quar- 
ters before Nov. 1st, and should be helping to fill the egg 
basket all winter. Pullets as a rule lay the most of the 
winter eggs, if looked after at the proper time in the fall. 

Make your poultry house warm and light, feed plenty but 
don't fatten your hens, always have plenty of clean water, 
don't forget to furnish good grit and a dusting place 
in winter, and you will have plenty of eggs in the coldest 
weather. 



Grit, Shells and Vegetable Foods Are Needed by Laying Fowls 

— A Good Ration. 

By R. A. Pike. 

In writing an article on winter egg production I realize 
that it will not be of much interest to poultry men who are 
getting a satisfactory number of eggs from their fowls, it 
will, therefore, be of help only to those who are not getting 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 73 

as many eggs as they should. In my opinion the reason for 
not getting winter eggs is apt to be over-feeding and lack 
of information as to the egg producing qualities of foods. 
It is possible for a poultryman to give his fowls plenty of 
food and the best of care, yet fail to obtain winter eggs. 

I find that most poultry keepers know that fresh water 
must be provided; that the house must be dry and free from 
draughts; that lice must be killed and the house and prem- 
ises must be kept clean and disinfected. These things are 
generally known but if not lived up to the balance of this 
article will be of little value. I also find that many people 
do not know that both grit and oyster shells should be be- 
fore the fowls at all times. Many think that one takes the 
place of the other or that if sand or gravel is provided only 
shells are required. Grit is crushed rock about the size of 
small corn, the edges are sharp and good grit is composed 
of rock that remains sharp until entirely worn away. Grit 
is the hens' false teeth; it grinds the food so that it can be 
digested and its use will save at least one fourth of the feed 
bill. Gravel does not take the place of grit because it is 
round and does not cut the food, sand is of little value, even 
though sharp, for it is so fine that it passes through the 
fowl without doing the work. 

Oyster shells are fed laying hens simply to furnish lime 
for making egg shells; oyster shells dissolve too quickly to 
make good grit and are too thin to do good grinding even 
while they last. Shells are mostly carbonate of lime. Dry 
bone can be placed before the old and young stock at all 
times as it is largely composed of phosphate of lime which 
is what the poultry require for bone building. The lime in 
oyster shells is different from that in bone and is used by 
the fowls for a different purpose. 

Green cut bones are simply fresh bones with generally a 
little meat on them, which have been run through a bone 
cutter. Green cut bone has all the value of dry bone and 
in addition is a great egg producer and flesh builder on ac- 
count of the meat, fat and marrow. The general rule for 
feeding it is one ounce a day to each grown fowl or two 
ounces every other day. When fresh bone cannot be had, 
beef scraps, meat meal or blood meal make excellent sub- 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 75 

stitutes. Hens lay best in the spring when green food is 
plentiful and in the winter either alfalfa meal or roots of 
some kind should be given at least every other day. As a 
regulator and blood purifier nothing is better than gran- 
ulated charcoal and it is not expensive. It should be with- 
in reach of the fowls the year round. Hens lay very little 
while molting. Sunflower seed fed every other day dur- 
ing the molt will furnish the oil necessary for new feathers, 
and a good prepared poultry food fed each day in slightly 
dampened mash will give the fowls the strength to with- 
stand the weakening process of molting. 

The main food for poultry is whole and ground grains 
and seeds, and I will not attempt in this short article to lay 
down any definite rules for feeding, but will give my method 
of feeding in a general way. First, it is important that 
quite a variety of grain and seeds be supplied, for fowls as 
well as people require more than one kind of food. The 
proper way to feed grain is to scatter it in the litter so that 
the chickens will have to exercise to find it. Some poultry- 
men claim to get best results by feeding only dry grain 
while others feed a mash either morning or night. Person- 
ally I prefer scattering millet and small grain in the litter 
in the morning as this will keep the fowls busy most of the 
day and the exercise will warm them up and keep them in 
health. At noon give a light feed of green cut bone and 
coarse grain. Just before roosting time feed a mash com- 
posed of one fourth alfalfa meal, one fourth bran, one fourth 
ground oats and one fourth coarse corn meal. Add to this 
your table scraps and a little prepared poultry food. Feed 
only what will be cleaned up in ten or fifteen minutes. In 
mixing the mash scald with boiling water but do not make 
it sloppy. The mash should then be covered and allowed 
to stand until cool enough to feed. I would only feed a mash 
during cold weather depending on grain and seeds during 
the warm months. My reason for feeding mash at night is 
that it warms the fowls and can be easily digested while 
they are. at roost. 

To put it all in a nut shell, provide variety, do not over- 
feed and do not use shrunken grain or half spoiled food; 
if you want eggs that are sweet and of good flavor use the 



76 EGG MONEY 

best food obtainable. Your little account book will tell the 
story at the end of the year. 



Sunlight, Pure Air and Exercise are as Necessary as Good 

Foods. 

By A, J. Saterstfom. 

"How do you manage to get your hens to lay so many 
eggs in winter?" is a question frequently put to us by 
our neighbors. There is a time of the year when we are 
all planning for winter eggs. We wish to give a few hints 
along our experience in securing them. We believe most 
any variety or breed can be made to lay in winter by proper 
care and housing. As our regular business allows us but 
limited time for the care of our fowls we cannot keep a 
large number; we expect to winter about one hundred 
hens each winter. 

For several years our hens would not yield to the care 
we gave them as well as we thought they should and we 
finally concluded that the fault was with the house. We 
built the house from the best material and employed a 
good carpenter, but, although it was warm, it seemed 
dead and gloomy. We had put the windows quite a way 
up from the floor and ventilation was not very good. So 
we went to work and cut the windows down to fifteen 
or eighteen inches from the floor and made them twice 
the former size; we also cut a hole in the south wall twelve 
by forty-eight inches, near the ceiling and made two flues, 
four by six inches, reaching through the roof and ceiling and 
down to within ten inches of the floor. That made excellent 
ventilation and we now have a house with plenty of sunlight 
in it as well as a constant flow of fresh, sweet air. 

We give our hens fresh water in the morning, leaving 
it in the basins until next morning, when the basins are 
cleaned and refilled. We keep the water basin so that 
the hens cannot step into or soil the water and high enough 
so the fowls cannot scratch any straw into it, thus keep- 
ing before them at all times a supply of clean water. 

We use no artificial heat but had no ice on the water 
except once or twice, all last winter, although we kept 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 77 

the twelve by forty-eight space in the wall open all win- 
ter with but a thickness of burlap tacked over it. 

We do not believe in soft feed in this climate. We 
have no fixed ration but feed a variety, comprising oats, 
wheat, barley, a little corn, mangels, cabbage, rutabagas, 
clover and scraps from the table. At times we feed the 
grain mixed and then again separate. We feed three 
times a day, usually oats in the morning, wheat at noon 
and barley or oats and corn mixed at night. We also 
throw in some millet occasionally. We feed all our grain 
in a liberal supply of straw which is exchanged for clean 
as soon as it gets dirty. We fed green cut bone or meat 
scraps two or three times a week and some charcoal. We 
keep grit and oyster shell always before the fowls as well 
as a dust bath with some sulphur sprinkled in it. We 
never use any medicines or condiments as we very seldom 
have an ailing fowl, and when we do we use the hatchet. 
We clean the dropping-boards on a certain day every 
week. 

With this kind of care we get a goodly number of eggs 
every day all winter. Lots of sunlight, pure air, water, 
and plenty of exercise, together with plenty of food in a 
reasonable variety will make most any hens lay in winter, 
provided they are from a laying strain. Don't be afraid 
of feeding too much to lajdng hens; it requires food to 
make eggs but be sure to give plenty of grit and avoid too 
much corn. 



Fresh Air, Exercise, and Cut Green Bone are Important 

Features in This Poultryman's Method, 

By Alfred A. Ziemer. 

The question asked by poultrymen at this season, seems 
to be, "How shall I house, feed and care for my hens to 
get the best results in winter eggs?" When cold weather 
sets in eggs are high in price and some people wonder 
because their hens don't lay; but they may take it for 
granted that such instances are always the results of wrong 



78 EGG MONEY 

methods of housing, feeding and caring for their hens. 
I have always found that when the poultryman does his 
part and cares for the fowls properly, they will not fail 
to produce plenty of winter eggs. 

My manner of housing, feeding and caring for my own 
flock has proved very successful. My houses are fifteen 
by thirty feet in size, simple, but well built of matched 
boards covered on the outside with prepared roofing and 
lined with tar-paper. This makes a very tight, warm 
house. Two-inch mesh wire netting is stretched on the under 
side of the rafters and the space between the roof boards 
and the wire is packed with oat straw which keeps the 
house warm and free from dampness. Curtains made of 
muslin are drawn at night in front of the roosts, making it 
comfortable for the sleeping fowls during cold nights and 
at the same time admitting plenty of fresh air for the fowls 
to breathe. I cover the ventilating areas and the win- 
dows with same material to cut off drafts and to keep 
out cold winds. This muslin, however, does not prevent 
plenty of air getting into the house and I consider pure air 
of great importance as a means of preserving the health 
of the fowls. Each house is divided in three parts by 
wire netting partitions, making each compartment fifteen 
by ten feet on the floor and sufficient for twenty fowls. 
The windows are on the south side, admitting plenty of 
sunshine, which is better for the fowls than medicine. 
A dust bath is provided in each pen and the roost platforms 
are cleaned every morning. 

In the morning I feed oats, wheat, barley and some kaf- 
fir corn and other small seeds scattered in chaff which 
covers the floor. This encourages the bird to scratch and 
thus obtain exercise, which is very needful for health and 
productiveness, and neglecting it is sufficient cause for a 
lack of eggs in cold weather. As man must earn his bread 
by the sweat of his brow or he will not appreciate it, so the 
hen that does not have to hustle for her food will not have 
a wholesome relish for it. 

At noon my fowls receive a mash of bran, ground oats, 
barley and cooked potatoes, moistened with milk. For the 
evening meal, they are fed shelled corn, oats and barley. 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 



79 



I want to say a word in favor of green bone for laying hens. 
I believe it is more effective as an egg producer than any 
other one thing that can be fed. Every poultryman whose 
desire it is to get winter eggs should not fail to feed it. 









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One of the Laying Houses on the Poultry Farm of A. A. 
Note the Small Area of Glass. 



Ziemer. 



Cabbage and other green food is before my fowls almost 
all the time and clover, grit, shells and charcoal are where 
the fowls can reach them any time. Pure, fresh water is 
provided frequently. Hens cared for in this manner will 
not fail to produce their share of eggs in winter. None 
•of our varieties of Buffs have ever failed to lay a liberal 
number of eggs in the severest weather. Don't expect 
your hens to lay well unless you care for them well. 



A Combination of Mash and Dry Grains Makes a 

Good Ration. 

By D. W. Harberts. 

My method of caring for and feeding fowls for eggs in 
winter is as follows: I have my houses warm and per- 
fectly dry and large enough so there will be no crowding. 



80 EGG MONEY 

The windows are arranged so that the birds receive the ben- 
efit of the sun the greater part of the day. I have a large 
scratching room, where they have plenty of room for ex- 
ercise, which I fill with straw or leaves to the depth of eight 
or ten inches. In one corner I have a dust box filled with 
dry road dust and at times put in a little lice killing powder. 
I have the dust box set so that the sun shines on it, as a 
hen likes to dust herself in the sun. 

I give warm, water to drink early in the morning and also 
at noon, which assists to warm them up. In the morning 
I give a mash composed of bran, ground corn and oats to 
which I add about half as much fine cut alfalfa or clover 
and about one half to one ounce of fresh cut green bone for 
each hen. 1 pour boiling water over this mixture to scald it 
and then mix in some milk. I feed this mash in a clean 
trough, about all they will eat in fifteen or twenty minutes. 
At noon I scatter wheat, barley, millet and sometimes oats 
in litter where they must scratch for it. At night I give 
them shelled corn in the .same way, just what they will eat 
up clean; they go to roost with full crops. I take care that 
they do not get too fat. I mix all the table scraps with the 
morning mash and keep grit and charcoal before them at 
all times. I have used this method of feeding in winter for 
a number of years and always get a nice lot of eggs. 



Barley is The Principal Food Fed by this Successful Breeder. 
By M. Keller. 

To promote winter egg production I keep my coops as 
clean as possible, for if filth is allowed to remain in them, 
or dead fowls are left to decay there, it is useless to ex- 
pect the hens to lay well. My coops are cleaned at least 
twice a week and air-slacked lime scattered on the floors 
to absorb the dampness and purify the air. As soon as 
the ground is frozen the fowls are kept in the coop. They 
will not lay if allowed to run around in the cold. 

Barley is the principal food furnished but we never 
keep them on one food constantly. We keep the coops 
bedded with nice clean straw and the barlev is scattered 



FEEDING FOR WINTER EGGS 



81 



in it so that they have to work for it. We also feed corn, 
but not shelled. A very good way to get green food is to 
take an old quilt or blanket, lay it down on the cellar floor, 
put two or three pounds of barley on it, then wet it thorough- 
ly and allow the barley to sprout. After the sprouts are 
from one-half to three-fourths of an inch. long, feed them 
to the hens once a day. This will answer for the green 
food that they get in the summer. 

My birds always have good clean water and all the 
milk we have to spare. Cabbage is also given them once 
or twice a week. 




FILLING THE EGG BASKET. 



How a Well Known Breeder's Standard=Bred Fowls are 

Housed and Fed to Produce Plenty of Eggs 

When Prices are High. 



By E. C. Willard. 

A cut of part of our laying house, which is 192 feet long, 
is presented herewith. It is built on a wood foundation. 
The frame is of 2 x 4 pieces. The walls are of waste lum- 
ber, box lumber and hemlock boards, with single-ply tar 
paper inside. The roof is made of shiplap, and the whole 
outside is covered with prepared roofing. The partitions 
are built of common boards, except a door three feet wide 
at the south. The door is made of netting stretched on 
a frame and is hung on double-acting spring hinges. The 
house has eight pens, each 10 x 24 feet . Each pen has 
a doorway in front, 43^2 x 6 feet, and four openings, each 
for a twelve-light, 8 x 10 glass, window. At the bottom 
of the doorway there is a board door, 43^ x 4 feet, opening 
outward and the space above is closed by a muslin screen 
during severe weather and when storms would beat in. 
We keep the whole doorway open in mild weather and on 
bright days in real cold weather. We have wire screens 
to be used to confine the fowls when the door is open, if 
necessary. And we try to keep a space in front of each 
pen clear of snow during the winter, so that the hens can 
get out in the air. The floors are of dirt and sand, covered 
with straw to a depth of six or eight inches in winter. 

The furnishings in each pen are a long feed box, a re- 
frigerater pan for water, set in the partition so as to serve 
two pens, nests of various sorts, droppings boards and 
perches. Two pens are provided with burlap curtains 
to enclose the roosts, but we did not find it necessary to 
use them last winter. It is our intention to leave one half 
of the glass out of this house this winter, filling the open- 
ings with muslin tacked on light frames. The breeding 



84 EGG MONEY 

houses are about the same as the laying houses, except that 
the pens are smaller. We have about fifty pullets in a 
flock in this laying , house. We find this style of house 
quite convenient, very satisfactory and not expensive. 

Feeding the Layers. 

We feed good, sound grain, wheat, oats, oarley, cracked 
corn on the cob, all fed in the litter. We are now feeding 
nearly one-fourth corn and in the dead of winter we feed 
it five times a week for the evening meal. Two evenings 
we feed boiled oats in troughs. The other grains are fed 
in about equal parts for the morning feed which is scattered 
in the litter either after the fowls go to roost at night or 
before they get off the perches in the morning. We keep 
grit, shell, charcoal, beef scraps and dry mash (made after 
the Mass. Experimental Station formula) before the fowls 
in boxes all the time. During the latter part of the morn- 
ing we feed vegetables, including cabbages hung by strings 
from the roof, and sugar beets, mangel-wurzels or turnips 
stuck on nails in the walls. Part of the time we give clover 
and twice a week a feed of chopped onions. The clover 
is sometimes cut and steamed, but more often it is fed dry 
and uncut. They eat more of the steamed clover, but it 
is quite satisfactory dry and uncut. 

The hens are treated the same as the pullets, but are 
not fed so much food. Our methods are very simple and 
can be put into operation by anyone. 



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A Group of Colony Houses on the Poultry Farm of E. C. Willard 



A FEEDING EXPERIMENT. 

Results of a Two=Months Test of Dry Mash Fed in Hoppers 

Versus Damp Mash in Troughs, Conducted at Minne= 

sota State Experiment Farm, Crookston. 

By Gus Walters. 

Experiments were in progress for two months, from 
Dec. 12, 1905, to Feb, 12, 1906, to ascertain the cost of egg 
production and the efficiency of different methods of feed- 
ing. 

Two pens of White Leghorn pullets (50 to each pen) 
were made up a week before the experiment began so the 
fowls of each pen would get accustomed to surroundings 
and kinds of food. Equally good birds were put in each 
pen (nearly all of an age) before the experiment began. 
Both pens of pullets gave practically the same number of 
eggs per day for several days before the test commenced. 
Pen No. 1 was fed the ground meals dry in a hopper or 
box so the fowls could help themselves at all times. The 
box contained two compartments; in one was put all the 
meals mixed together and in the other the beef scraps. 

Both pens were fed the whole and cracked grains scat- 
tered in the litter of straw on the floors, about one-third 
as much at the morning feed as at the night feed. 

Pen No. 2 was fed the ground grain in a mash daily, 
at noon, mixed with warm water and fed in troughs, all 
they would eat up clean in about ten minutes. The pounds 
of food each pen of fowls ate during the two months was 
as follows: 

Pen No. 1. Pen No. 2. 

Wheat 177 183^ 

Oats 157 1633^ 

Barley. 172 178M 

Wheat Bran 28% 51 

Wheat Middlings. 23% 44>£ 



86 EGG MONEY 

Ground Barley 28% 51 

Beef Scraps 69 393^ 

Cut Green Bone 13 18 

Alfalfa Hay 11 18 

Oyster Shells 20 20y 2 

Grit 13 13y 2 

It will be seen that those in pen No. 1 ate more beef 
scraps and less of the meals than the fowls in pen No. 2. 
We think that if the pullets in pen No. 1 had been fed by 
the dry feed method from the time they were hatched in 
spring until the experiment began,' they would have been 
more accustomed to the kind of food and would not have 
consumed so much beef scraps, but more of the meals, 
which would have given better results. Pen No. 1 pullets 
appeared not to relish or like the dry mash as well as the 
pullets in pen No. 2 did their damp mash at noon. 

The following table shows the cost of food and the 
results obtained from each pen: 

Pen No. 1. Pen No. 2. 

Cost of food for 2 months $6 . 857 $6 . 844 

Dozens of eggs received, total. ... .93 7-12 101 J^ 
Value of eggs at 27c, average price, $25 . 28 $27 . 45 
Average number of eggs per day .. . 18.2 .. 19.6 
Nutritive ratio of food consumed. . 1 :4 . 1 1 :5 

It was noticeable at the close of the experiment that 
the pullets in pen No. 2 were in better condition of health 
than the pullets in pen No. 1. This we think was due to 
the fact that the birds in pen No. 1 ate too much beef scraps 
which made the ration too narrow or stimulating, but if the 
beef scraps had been mixed with the meals in the same pro- 
portion as in the damp mash fed to pen No. 2, we think 
that they would have done equally well. Another pen of 
Leghorn pullets was fed the same as pen No. 1 pullets, ex- 
cept that the beef scraps were mixed with the meals in 
about the same proportions as in the damp mash that pen 
No. 2 received. 

This third pen of pullets did as well as pen No. 2 as re- 
gards egg yield and condition of health at close of experi- 
ment, but as it contained varying numbers and for other 
reasons, we did not keep an accurate account of food con- 
sumed. 



THE TRAP NEST. 



Its Use Enables the Poultryman to Weed out the Barren 
and Unprofitable Hen. 

By G. I. Lytle. 

Every poultry keeper has no doubt had the desire to 
know the individual record of each of his fowls. Hereto- 
fore it has been impossible to gratify that desire, as no one 
could afford to pen each of his fowls separately. The 
advent of the record nestbox has now made it possible for 
every poultry keeper to know the exact number of eggs 
produced by each of his hens. 

The desire to know is the result of a natural inference 
that individual records would show that hens vary as much 
in the number of eggs laid as different cows vary in tho 
amount of milk produced or horses in their speed. With- 
out doubt, there is more difference in the laying qualities 
of various hens, for only the best cattle and horses have been 
used as breeders for years, while poultry keepers have not 
known whether the eggs they used for hatching were from 
hens that laid 200 eggs a year or only twenty. 

A difference in the number of eggs means a decided 
difference in the amount of profit. A hen which lays 
only fifty eggs a year hardly pays for her feed, and the 
owner receives nothing for his labor or money invested in 
buildings, etc. A hen which lays 100 eggs a year pays for 
her feed, interest on the money invested and a small return 
for the labor, while the hen that lays 150 eggs a year yields 
a profit for her additional fifty eggs that is clear profit. The 
hen that lays 200 eggs a year must yield a handsome profit; 
in fact, it is over 100 per cent. Every poultry keeper 
should know the exact number of eggs laid by each fowl 
in his flock, that he may keep only the decidedly profitable. 
What Tests Show. 

Tests made with record nest boxes show that there are 
at least two hens in every twenty that never lay, and eight 



88 EGG MONEY 

more which only lay enough collectively to pay their way. 
The other ten produce all the profit, which is diminished by 
the expense of the two which never lay. The conclusion is 
that half of any flock will produce more profit than the 
whole flock, which is true. The only question is to know 
which hens to keep and which to dispose of. 

As a sample, an egg record made by a pen of my fowls 
during the month of July, when record nest boxes were 
first placed in that pen, shows the conditions existing in 
every flock before it has been sifted by the use of a nest 
box which gives the individual record of each fowl. 

This record was made somewhat after the heaviest lay- 
ing season, but it shows very accurately the relative laying 
qualities of the different hens, as proven by the succeeding 
months. 

There were two hens, No. 3 and 6, which laid no eggs 
during the month, nor did they at any time thereafter. 

The contrast between the good layers and the poor layers 
can be seen in the following columns: 

Hen No. 3 laid eggs 

Hen Ho. 6 laid .- eggs 

Hen No. 16 laid *...... 1 egg 

Hen No. 9 laid \ 6 eggs 

Hen No. 19 laid 8 eggs 

Hen No. 14 laid 10 eggs 

Hen No. 18 laid. 15 eggs 

Hen No. 20 laid 17 eggs 

Hen No. 2 laid 18 eggs 

Hen No. 8 laid , .'., 19 eggs 

Total. 94 eggs 

Hen No. 1 laid 19 eggs 

Hen No. 7 laid 20 eggs 

Hen No. 12 laid : 22 eggs 

Hen No. 13 laid 22 eggs 

Hen No. 17 laid. 22 eggs 

Hen No. 5 laid 23 eggs 

Hen No. 4 laid 24 eggs 



THE TRAP NEST. 89 

Hen No. 15 laid 24 eggs 

Hen No. 10 laid 25 eggs 

Hen No. 11 laid • 26 eggs 

Total • 227 eggs 

The ten poor layers produced a total of only 94 eggs, 
a little over nine eggs apiece, while the ten good layers pro- 
duced 227 eggs, or nearly twenty-three eggs apiece. The 
ten poor layers more than paid their way in summer, but 
fell behind in winter, so that the value of their eggs for the 
year was less than the expense of keeping them. The 
good layers in summer proved to be the good layers in winter 
also. 

As a result of the use of record nest boxes for two sea- 
sons my egg yield this year, for the same number of fowls, 
has been well on to double what it was before putting in 
record nest boxes. 

The Direct Benefit. 

A record nest box will accomplish the following with any 
flock: It will show which are the barren hens; it will show 
the exact number of eggs produced by each laying hen; 
it will enable the owner to keep only the ten prolific layers 
out of every twenty hens, and to thereby increase his prof- 
its; it will enable the owner to place twenty prolific layers 
where he now has ten prolific layers and ten poor layers, 
and to thereby more than double his profits with the same 
buildings, ground, feed and care; it will make it possible 
to use only the eggs from the best layers for hatching, and 
to thereby produce a prolific laying strain. 



PRESERVING EGGS. 



How Eggs are "Put Down" in the Season of Greatest Pro= 

duction, When the Price is Low, to Keep Until 

the Price is High. 

By E. F. Ladd. 

At the present time eggs are largely packed in lime, 
salt and other products, or are put in cold storage for winter 
use, but such eggs are very far from being perfect when they 
come upon the markets, and frequently more than one-half 
of them are unfit for use, if we are to judge from the condi- 
tion of most markets. A method to be generally em- 
ployed must be simple, cheap, and the eggs, when wanted for 
use, must be of good quality. 

There was need for a simple method of preserving eggs; 
one which would enable the farmers or the consumers to 
put away eggs during the summer months when they are 
plentiful and command but a small price, to be used in times 
of scarcity when the price of eggs rules exceptionally high. 
For this reason we were led to make experiments in preserv- 
ing eggs by various means. Of the methods tested, water 
glass was the most promising and our experiments continued 
through several seasons with most satisfactory results. 

The shell of an egg has a very thin coating of mucilag- 
inous, albuminous matter upon its surface that seems to 
protect the eggs for a considerable time from atmospheric 
action or the introduction of the germs of decomposition. 
If this coating be removed immediately after the egg- is 
deposited, while still warm, the keeping quality seems 
to be much reduced, or if eggs that become soiled in the nest 
are washed, this albuminous coating is softened and the 
life of the egg shortened thereby. 

Water Glass the Best Preservative. 

It is believed that in water glass we have a preservative 
which will, when used for preserving eggs, give better satis- 



92 EGG MONEY 

faction than any other method available for those who desire 
to keep eggs for any great length of time. 

Eggs put down by this method have been kept from three 
to nine months, and the eggs have come out in better con- 
dition than by any other method tested. When strictly 
fresh eggs only have been put down, at the end of six months 
they have invariably come out in better shape than the 
average market eggs supposed to be fresh. 

This method has been tested, in a commercial way, in 
nearly every state and part of our country, and we have 
not had to exceed eight adverse reports. One party in 
Maine reports that during the summer of 1903 he put down, 
by this method, 6,000 dozen of fresh eggs, and, in the fol- 
lowing December and January, he was selling these eggs, 
receiving the highest prices paid for strictly fresh eggs, 
and was frequently told that.they were the best to be had. 
We might quote from such trials made during the past threo 
years by parties in North Dakota, California, Carolina, 
New York, etc., but the general tenor of all is about the 
same. 

After experiments made with solutions of various 
strengths, and under varying conditions, we found that an 
8 to a 10 per cent solution of water glass would preserve 
eggs very effectually, so that at the end of eight months 
eggs that were preserved the first part of the summer appear 
to be perfectly fresh. In most packed eggs, after a little 
time, the yolk settles to one side and the egg is then in- 
ferior in quality. In boiling eggs preserved for eight months 
in water glass the yolk retained its normal position in the 
egg, and in taste they were not to be distinguished from 
fresh, unpacked store eggs. Again, most packed eggs will 
not beat up well for cake-making or for frosting, while 
eggs from a solution of water glass seemed quite equal 
to the average fresh store eggs of the market. It should 
be borne in mind that in these experiments only fresh eggs 
were used for preserving; no egg was more than four days 
old. Eggs that have already become stale cannot be suc- 
cessfully preserved by this or any other method so as to 
come out fresh. 



PRESERVING EGGS 9a 

Water glass (Sodium Silicate) is a very cheap product 
that can usually be procured at not to exceed fifty cents 
per gallon, and one gallon will make enough solution to pre- 
serve fifty dozen of eggs, so that the cost of material for this 
method would only be about one cent per dozen. Water- 
glass is sodium and potassium silicate, sodium silicate being 
usually the cheaper. 

Eggs Must Be Fresh. 

The eggs to be put down by this method must be fresh 
and not stale store eggs. A few stale eggs will soon injure 
the entire lot. One party reports that he put down two 
lots of eggs, fifty gallon jars in each case; one lot strictly 
fresh eggs, the other contained some stale store stock and 
the first was a complete success while the second lot came 
out about like the ordinary packed eggs, some fair, some 
spoiled. 

A good grade of water glass must be used. Some of the 
cheap water glass contains so much of free, uncombined 
alkali that the eggs preserved in such solutions become 
watery and acquire a bad flavor. I prefer water glass in the 
form of heavy white jelly which flows like heavy cold molas- 
ses. Of this grade of water glass somewhat less is needed 
than when the thinner produce is employed. The dry 
powder water glass has not as a general rule dissolved fully 
in hot water, and for that reason has not proven as satis- 
factory as the first named product. 

Galvanized iron vessels, crocks, jars, etc., may be used 
in which to preserve the eggs. Wooden kegs of good 
quality are satisfactory, but these must be thoroughly 
sweetened by scalding with boiling water. 

There have been a few complaints that barrels have not 
been entirely satisfactory as the water glass dissolved some 
products which deposited on the eggs. I am inclined to 
think this may have been due to the presence of glue used as 
sizing for the barrel. When the barrels have such a coat- 
ing it might be well to char the inside of the barrel by 
placing in it a few shavings saturated with kerosene oil 
and then throwing in a lighted taper and allowing the sides 
of the barrel to become charred. This barrel well burned 



94 



EGG MONEY 



and then thoroughly washed should be free from any glue- 
like products. 

Preparing the Solution. 

For those who may desire to test the method I give the 
following directions: 

Use pure water that has been thoroughly boiled and then 
cooled. To each ten quarts of water add one quart or 
slightly less of water glass. When the heavy jelly-like 
solution is used, three-fourths quart of water glass will be 
ample. 

The solution may be prepared, placed in the jar and fresh 
eggs added from time to time until the jar is filled, but, be 
sure that there is fully two inches of water glass solution 
to cover the eggs. 

Keep the eggs in a cool, dark place and well covered to 
prevent evaporation. A cool cellar is a good place in which 
to keep the eggs. 

If the eggs are kept in too warm a place the silicate is 
deposited and the eggs are not properly protected. Do 
not wash the eggs before packing, for by so doing you in- 
jure their keeping quality, probably by dissolving the 
mucilagenous coating on the outside of the shell. 

For packing use only perfectly fresh eggs, for stale eggs 
will not be saved and may prove harmful to the others. 
All packed eggs contain a little gas and in boiling such eggs 
they will crack. This may be prevented by making a pin- 
hole in the blunt end of the egg. To do this hold the egg 
in the hand, place the point of a pin against the shell of the 
egg at the blunt end and give the pin a quick, sharp blow, 
just enough to drive the pin through the shell without injury 
to the egg. 




REGULATING THE MOLT. 



A Successful Molt is Necessary for the Well=Being of the 
Profitable Fowl — The Required Care and Food. 

By T. F. Rigg. 

Fowls which have been properly fed, housed and other- 
wise cared for molt in August and September, and while such 
stock demands some special attention at that time there 
is no need of any loss. Fowls molt in accordance with the 
law of nature, and molting is no particular strain upon an 
entirely healthy fowl. 

We must keep in mind all the time that we are, in a great 
measure, rearing and keeping our domestic poultry under 
unnatural conditions. The fowls of the air and the woods 
and the prairie molt slowly. This is a wise provision of 
nature. These birds are subject to all the changing con- 
ditions of the weather. Nature does not rob them of all, 
or practically all, of their feathers at once, as man's treat- 
ment of fowls very often robs the fowls of their entire coat 
of feathers. 

I spend some time every fall in search of the prairie 
chicken, the quail and the duck. There is never a time 
when the experienced person could detect by handling 
one of these birds that it was in a molt. Nature not only 
protects them against cold, but never for a day takes from 
them the power of rapid flight by having them drop all the 
old feathers at once. 

We, as breeders of poultry, can practically regulate the 
molting of our fowls. Where proper attention is not given, 
the stock often suffers during the molting season. In all 
his operations the successful fancier — let us designate him 
as the man who succeeds, for then we. will more strongly 
impress the reader — knows that the different stages through 
which his fowls must pass crowd upon one another very 
rapidly. It is, after all, but a brief time from chickenhood 



96 EGG MONEY 

to maturity, when a chick becomes a fowl. The fancier 
so feeds and so handles his stock that it is fully able to 
meet the requirements of the different stages through which 
it must pass. And so, when the molting season comes 
his fowls are in condition to molt properly. He has brought 
them to this period fully prepared for the ordeal through 
which they must pass. 

"Rugged" Fowls Molt Best. 

How has he accomplished this? Well, an answer to 
this question would necessitate the covering of the whole 
field of fowl management. Let me tell you in brief how I 
have handled my stock, and as the work has annually been 
satisfactory in results, it may be that it will prove of interest 
and profit to you. In the first place, the stock has been 
bred right, coming down along the line for years from 
absolutely healthy and rugged stock. This is impor- 
tant. Then as newly hatched chicks, as growing chicks, 
as breeders, they are handled and fed and housed so as to 
develop their every faculty. But let us more particularly 
refer to the management having a direct bearing upon the 
molting of the fowls. From the day the stock is placed in 
the breeding pens we feed heavily, and by so doing we are 
sustaining every element in the fowl's nature, flesh, blood, 
bone, muscle, feathers, etc., and are getting an abundance 
of eggs. If we did not thus sustain the various elements 
in the fowl we could not and would not secure a liberal sup- 
ply of eggs. Here is where a great mistake is made by many. 
Here is where the theorist in his writings as regards feeding 
for egg production overlooks a fundamental law of nature. 
It is a fact beyond dispute that it is during the period of 
the most heavy feeding, when that feeding is proper, that 
we secure our greatest egg production. The various or- 
gans of a hen must be working in harmony with nature's 
requirements before she can possibly give nature's full 
output. A hen cannot possibly lay an abundance of eggs 
unless all her being is supplied fully with the food elements 
required. There is no product which can be fed to a hen 
that she can convert entirely into eggs. She must draw 
upon her food for the maintenance of all her being, and so 



REGULATING THE MOLT 97 

we keep in mind in selecting our food rations the fact that 
our fowls will in the fall be in molt. We are feeding them 
all the time to meet this condition. 

Fowls when properly fed begin to molt in August 
This early molt is the effect of what is sometimes 
called high feeding, but what is really proper feeding. Such 
fowls, by reason of the correct feeding, and the housing from 
rains and exposure, are in such a condition that they molt 
early, for, being strong and rugged and healthy, nature 
finds every requirement at hand and proceeds to business. 
It is another illustration of men working hand in hand with 
nature, aiding and abetting. That is all. 

Now, as to bringing about this condition. Our practice 
has been to feed such rations as will thus put the fowls 
in this condition. This means that oats, both ground and 
whole, some corn meal, some oil cake meal, some beef 
scraps, raw bone, and like foods, have been daily given the 
fowls. 

Use of Oil Meal. 

We would not be without oil cake meal. It is one of the 
most valuable foods in all the list. It will keep the growing 
chicks in perfect condition so far as their bowels are con- 
cerned; it prevents loss of chicks by bowel trouble, the 
trouble that carries off a very large per cent of the chicks 
which die; it is rich in feather making properties, and gives 
the plumage a gloss that cannot otherwise be obtained. 
Not only this, but the fowls are supplied all the time with a 
blue grass and clover range. We have been building up 
the fowl in every particular, bone, blood, muscle, etc., and 
this ration, this care, supplies, according to nature, the very 
material necessary for feather making at the time of molt. 



THE FORCED MOLT. 

A Description of the Method Used on Several Successful Egg 

Farms to Produce Early Shedding and Rapid 

Feathering, that the Fowls May Lay in the 

Season of High Prices. 



By H. A. Nourse. 

Inducing an early molt is comparatively a new operation 
in the business of poultry keeping. If we mistake not, the 
first to publicly describe the practice, was the prosperous 
proprietor of a New York egg farm. This man was in 
demand as a lecturer at agricultural institutes and it was 
during his lecturing tours that the method was first made 
public. 

The advantages of such a method are manifest. As a 
rule the best layers of the first year molt late in the follow- 
ing fall. This applies with equal force to yearlings and two- 
year-olds. Molting late, they naturally molt slowly, 
and before they have entirely produced their new plumage 
and recovered the strength lost in the process, and are in 
condition to produce eggs, the best of the season of high 
prices is over. During the latter part of the summer when 
the price of eggs is low they can readily be spared from the 
ranks of producers and at that time molting should take 
place in order that the fowls may recover their wonted pro- 
ductiveness before the beginning of cold weather. 

Obviously the hens could not molt successfully while in 
full lay. Therefore the poultryman conceived the idea of 
turning these fowls loose in the fields to search for most of 
their food, feeding them only so much grain as was necessary 
to support them and that of a non-fattening nature. Under 
such treatment the egg yield decreased rapidly until it was 
represented by zero and the fowls themselves were rather 
thin in flesh, yet their blood was good and they possessed 



THE FORCED MOLT 



99 



abundant vigor from their free life in the open air. At 
this point they were returned to the yards and fed heavily 
of food containing rather more carbonaceous material than 
usually is found in rations prescribed for laying fowls. 
This heavy feeding, with little exercise, induced a rapid 
shedding of the feathers and often in two weeks the dis- 
carding process was practically complete. This done, a 
strengthening, feather-building ration was furnished, in- 
cluding bone-forming foods for the bony structure of the 
feather, sufficient fat or canbonaceous material to main- 
tain the heat or energy of the body and protein for the sup- 
port of the muscles and tissues. More exercise was given, 
a run of considerable area provided with sufficient shade 
being preferred. Of course, other conditions were favorable. 
All sorts of vermin were kept down and the fowls were made 
comfortable by conditions conducive to health. 

This procedure made comparatively short work of the 
molting season and in two months from the time of turning 
the fowls loose on the range, they appeared with a brand 
new coat of feathers and with healthy, vigorous bodies. 
If, then, the process began 'the first of August, the fowls 
were ready for business the first of October and laying well 
one month after. This plan, with slight variations, is, 
in use today on numerous large and small egg plants the 
country over and enables the poultryman to secure a heavy 
egg yield from his yearling and two-years-old hens at a time 
when eggs are money, and a time when otherwise the hens 
would be in full molt, or just recovering, and absolutely un- 
productive. 








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THE 200=EGG HEN. 



The Standard=Bred Hen That Will Lay Two Hundred Eggs 

in Twelve Months is a Reality — How She is 

Produced and Cared for. 

By Victor D. Caneday. 

The question whether the 200-egg hen is a possibility 
seems to be having more than usual attention from the poul- 
try press. There is evidently a growing faith among the 
more careful breeders as to the realization of the hen that 
can lay 200 eggs in a year. Naturally there are some who 
are skeptical with regard to such heavy laying, but probably 
most of the skepticism is due to a misunderstanding of the 
different writers. 

Much which has been written, while not untrue, might 
be quite misleading to the casual reader. We do not think 
that anyone really believes the time will come when the 
average hen (take them right through the country as they 
run) will lay 200 eggs per year, although some might gather 
that idea from some articles which have been written on 
the subject. The 200-egg hen is a product of careful breed- 
ing and proper care just as truly as is the exhibition fowl, 
and there is not much more danger of the average hen be- 
coming a 200-egg hen than that the average thoroughbred 
fowl will become an exhibition specimen. 

A hen capable of laying over 200-eggs in a year today is a 
phenomenal layer and has become such by careful, pains- 
taking breeding, or else has been given unusually good care 
to accomplish that result. The beginner who starts into 
the poultry business expecting to get an average of 200 eggs 
per year from his hens will find he has made an awful blunder 
in his calculations, even though he purchased the best 
laying stock in the country to start with. Most beginners 
will be safer in estimating their first two years' egg product 
at 100 eggs per hen per year. We have made it one of 



102 



EGG MONEY 



our chief aims in breeding to breed for the best layers, and, 
among other things, we have learned that to obtain the maxi- 
mum number of eggs from a flock of hens in a year they 
must be given a pen with ample room, and not be allowed 
to mingle with other fowls, nor other fowls be allowed to 
mingle with them. Everything must be as regular and sys- 
tematic as clock-work in both care and feeding. Any 




A Vigorous Male and His Family of Winter Layers Taking Out-Door 
Exercise in Mid-Winter. 



sudden cnange of feed or unusual condition of any kind is 
quite apt to stop the most of the flock laying for from two 
weeks to a month. 

Occasionally there are hens which will continue to lay 
pretty regularly when the conditions are such that the other 
members of the flock are non-producers. It is from such 
specimens the 200-egg hen must come. But their progeny, 
while having the continuous egg-laying habit, will vary 
considerably, some being much more persistent than others. 
By carefully selecting the most persistent layers from year to 
year and mating the best laying hens with males from equally 
prolific dams, the average egg yield of a flock can be wonder- 



THE 200-EGG HEN 



103 



fully increased; where the principal aim is to get the maximum 
egg yield, it is entirely possible to bring the average up to 
200 eggs per hen per year. True, there are other things 
besides breeding which enter in; the hens must be properly 
reared so as to have rugged constitutions and their keeper 
must be an expert on the lines of feeding, care and housing. 





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Interior of a House for Winter Layers, Showing- the Roost and Roost 
Platform with Curtain to let Down in Front. 

We have often wished that we could afford to give a pen 
of hens a fair show for a full year's record. We feel con- 
fident the results would be such as to establish the fact that 
careful breeding and good care easily produce a flock of 200- 
egg hens. When we first began breeding poultry we found a 
very great variation in the hens as layers, some actually 
not laying fifty eggs in a year and one hen, which was a beauty 
and won second prize at the poult ry show, was practically 
worthless as a layer. We found such hens fine eating on 
the table, but chose the best layers for breeders, and today 
the most of our breeding hens have records of from twenty- 



104 EGG MONET 

four to twenty-nine eggs in a month; several have laid from 
150 to 165 eggs in eight months, and some have laid over 200 
eggs in a year without special care or housing. 

Laying Versus Breeding. 

It is needless to say we have great faith in the possibility 
of the 200-egg hen, but we do not believe that one can obtain 
such large egg records from their fowls year after year and 
use them for breeders at the same time successfully. We 
now select our best layers by their best month's records 
and are confident that a hen which is capable of laying from 
twenty-five to twenty-nine eggs in a month would be able, 
under proper. management, to lay 200 or more eggs in a year. 

There is one other feature of this 200-egg hen subject 
where there seems to be a misunderstanding. Most writers 
who claim the 200-egg hen is possible, base their calculations 
on her first year as a layer, that is, they claim she is able to 
lay 200 eggs in one year, from the time she comes to laying 
maturity. There are not many hens which will give as good 
results in egg production the second laying year as they can 
in the first, for several reasons. In the first place if pullets 
commence laying in October or November they will often 
not molt until they have gone through the full twelve months, 
especially if they are carefully fed and housed. In fact, 
a good laying pullet is quite apt to molt later than the rest 
of the flock, and, of course, by so doing adds that much to 
her first year's record while deducting it from the second 
year's work. 

Then there are some writers who seem to carry the idea 
that there are times when the weather is so cold that it is 
impossible to get a hen to lay a single egg. A good laying 
hen, when properly housed and fed, will not pay much at- 
tention to the extremes of temperature. In fact, the most 
of the secret of obtaining winter eggs is in preventing the 
flock feeling the extremes of temperature, by exposing them 
as much as possible in mild winter weather and taking care 
to keep them comfortably housed in the extremely cold 
weather. For such reasons as these it is clearly evident 
the average hen will not soon become a 200-egg hen, because 
most flocks are too miserably housed and cared for in the 
winter for them to lay at all except in the mildest weather 



THE 200-EGG HEN 



105 



when they are comfortable out of doors and can find sufficient 
food for their purpose. 

The use of trap nests and careful record keeping has dis- 
closed the truth concerning the laying qualities of our pure- 
bred fowls. A flock which can produce an average of 150 
eggs per year for each hen (and that is a mighty good lay- 




Comfortable Quarters for the Housewife's Fowls, Banked with Corn 
Stalks and Equipped with an Improvised Open Shed. 

ing flock) is almost sure to have some hens in it that are lay- 
ing 200 or more eggs in the year; but, if the breeder has no 
way of knowing which hen it is that is his or her best layer, 
there is very little chance of improving the laying qualities 
of the flock. The only practical way in which improvement 
in the* laying can be accomplished is by careful selection and 
mating. Of course care is necessarily limited in its effect. 
One can give a scrub cow the very best of food and care, 
but she will not begin to give product in the milk and butter 
which the same care would bring from a well-bred Jersey 
of a heavy milking strain. Just so with the laying hen — 
a flock of hens which for generations have been selected and 
mated to produce superior layers will respond much more 



106 EGG MONEY 

readily and freely to good care and feeding than will a flock 
which has not been bred and selected systematically for 
that purpose. 

Heavy Laying Requires Strength. 

For the benefit of the amateur we will say here that one 
should not expect to get strong, rugged young stock from 
a heavy-laying hen the same year in which her record as a 
layer is made. Continuous heavy laying is a great drain 
on the system and eggs from a hen after a long^ period of 
heavy laying are not apt to give good results in fertility 
or produce strong, vigorous chicks. We know some writers 
claim that if a hen is properly fed continuous laying need 
not affect fertility and in part we agree with them, but the 
difficulty is to feed correctly, to supply the materials upon 
which the hens can sustain the wear and tear of the body, 
and at the same time keep up the egg yield. There is a 
happy medium between the two extremes. Happy is the 
man who has found it and can so care for his fowls as to 
obtain the maximum number of eggs from them without al- 
lowing them to either become too fat or too thin, for their 
best good in health and vigor. In isolated cases we know 
it is possible, but doubt very much if it is in the case of an 
entire flock unless they are all of one line of breeding with very 
similar characteristics. The hen which made the best 
year's record for us gave exceptionally good results in both 
fertility and vigor of chicks, but we consider that an excep- 
tion to the rule and would advise the amateur to select his. 
best layers from their monthly records or else breed from 
them the season following their record. year. This is the 
method we adopted when we first began breeding standard 
poultry (at that time we did it through force of circum- 
stances), but after several years of experience we are satis- 
fied that it is the best method for the poultry breeder to 
follow. 



RHODE ISLAND EGG FARMING. 



A Description of the Primitive Equipment and Methods Used 

on Little Crompton's Famous Egg Farms — Buildings 

are Positively Cheap — Cracked Corn is the Principal 

Article of Food — Profits Average Seventy=five 

Cents to One Dollar a Hen. . 

By Arthur C. Smith. 

If one were to seek the soundest and surest business 
proposition in the entire field of poultry culture, he would 
be compelled to choose between rearing the winter soft- 
roasters as demonstrated by the South Shore poultry- 
men of Massachusetts and market egg production as con- 
ducted on plants of Little Crompton, Rhode Island. The 
first has been explained frequently, but the latter, the oldest 
and best established paying poultry enterprise in the United 
States, has seldom been described to the readers of poultry 
literature. 

Little Crompton is a township in Rhode Island, at the 
most southeasterly point in the state. On the map, the 
southern portion of the territory that comprises the town 
appears to have been put there to separate Buzzard and Nar- 
ragansett bays. To visit this most interesting poultry 
colony, in many respects the most interesting in the country, 
at least so considered by Mr. Edward Brown, the English 
poultry authority and writer, one must leave the train at 
Tiverton, R. I., and then procure a team for a drive of at 
at least twenty-five miles, if he wishes to see any considerable 
part of the colony. It is aptly termed a poultry colony, 
as nearly every resident has poultry, either as the main 
product of the farm or as an important side issue. 

The drive from Tiverton around Little Crompton on a 
fine day is a very pleasant one, taking in as it does the scenery 
of both shores of the east channel of Narragansett bay. 
About five miles from Tiverton station and not far from the 
line that separates the two towns, the visitor comes to the 



108 



EGG MONEY 



top of a hill overlooking much of Little Crompton and be- 
low him is spread out many little farms, perhaps a score or 
more, each with its group of poultry cottages, all much the 
same in appearance. All are wood-colored, that is, none are 
painted, and so few whitewashed that they are scarcely 
noticed. We shall see these houses more in detail on closer 
inspection. 

The Original "Red" Section. 

The largest plants winter about twenty-eight hundred 
hens. These are all Rhode Island Reds. Both Single 
and Rose Comb varieties are kept. This breed was originat- 
ed right here on these very farms and is well adapted to egg 
farming; though as bred on most farms it is not as large as 
other standard American breeds it is yet large enough for 
a good, salable market fowl. This bird is, undoubtedly, 
a Mediterranean- Asiatic cross with the brown Leghorn rep- 
resenting the Mediterranean blood and a rather undeter- 
mined quality representing the Asiatic. The writer has 
seen females much resembling these from crosses of Brown 
Leghorns and Light Brahmas. There is no apparent rea- 
son why a Cochin cross could not be used with Brown 





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A Sample of Primitive Brood Coop Used on One of the Colony Egg 
Farms Described by A. C. Smith. 



RHODE ISLAND EGG FARMING 



109 




A Typical Laying House Found by A. C. Smith on his Visit to a Rhode 
Island Egg Farm. 



Leghorns to produce a variety of the same characteristics 
as the Rhode Island Reds possess. However, the whole 
matter seems to be problematical and we must take these 
farms as we find them with the established Rhode Island 
Reds — good layers and fairly good market fowls. 

While the great majority of these farms breed Rhode 
Island Reds exclusively, yet there are exceptions. The 
Light Brahmas are the second favorites. We also find 
White Wyandottes and particularly do we find Pekin Ducks 
and Embden Geese. 

The Houses are Cheap. 

As stated, these are not built for ornamentation. They 
are not built by men who have burdensome incomes to 
reduce. ' They are built by men inculcated with the save- 
the-coppers spirit, and look it. All are -of much the same 
general plan, built of rough, square edged hemlock boards, 
both roof and walls. They are about all of the pitch roof 
style and while they vary in length are in almost every 
instance ten feet wide. Some are ten feet long, more are 
twelve or fifteen, and many are twenty. A great deal 
of ingenuity is displayed in the minor details of fittings. 
The roofs are in some cases covered with waterproof paper, 
but in most instances they are not. The hemlock boards 
are laid up and down close together, and battened, some- 
times with lath, sometimes with wider stuff, and again, 
with other boards, in which case the course underneath 
is not laid very close together. There is always one win- 



110 EGG MONEY 

dow in the south side, sometimes more, according to the 
length, and a door. The walls are between three and six 
feet high, generally nearer six than three. Just outside 
the door we find a crate, often a common strawberry crate, 
for cooping broody hens until they desist. Except in severe 
weather we also find a bucket for water and a feed trough, 
also just outside the door. 

The Inside Fittings. 
The interior has the necessities, nothing more. You 
always find a bank of a dozen or so nest boxes on the wall, 



Equipment for Distributing Food and Water and Gathering- Eggs on 
a Rhode Island Egg Farm. 

a hopper or two for feeding grain and scraps and the roost 
poles. The latter generally rest on cross pieces nailed to the 
walls and are usually at the west end of the house, about 
two feet from the ground, for the floor of these houses is 
always sand, loam, or a mixture. There are seldom any 
droppings boards, the droppings collecting on the ground. 
To prevent them being scratched all over the floor a board 
six or eight inches wide is placed on edge across the floor of 
the house. As these houses are thoroughly cleaned but 
twice a year, the odor that would arise from the droppings 
creates a problem. It is this fact that makes the elimina- 
tion of drop-boards advisable for there is less odor where 
the droppings fall into loam or sand. Occasionally sand 
or loam from the opposite end of the house is shoveled 



RHODE ISLAND EGG FARMING 



111 



•over the droppings, thus deodorizing the house for the 
time being. In the spring and fall these houses are thor- 
oughly cleaned. The sand or loam that forms the floor is 
taken out, the "inside walls whitewashed and clean sand or 
loam put in. That which has been taken out is used for 
fertilizer on grass land. 

Location and Capacity of Houses. 

These houses are located in the fields, usually fifty to one 
hundred feet apart. The number in each field depends upon 




Device for Moving Colony Laying Houses From one Location to An- 
other on a Rhode Island Egg Farm. 

the size of the field and the notion of the proprietor. We 
saw none located so close together that the growth of grass 
in the fields was affected by the number of hens. They 
are generally placed in rows so that a tearn can be driven 
handily along the front of each pen. Each house contains 
from twenty-five to fifty fowls, usually about thirty-five. 
The size of the house that contains the latter number is 
usually ten by twelve or fifteen feet. 

Methods of Feeding are Simple. 

These flocks have a hopper of cracked corn before them 
at all times. A great many flocks also have all the beef 
scraps that they will eat, also in hoppers. They are fed, too, 



112 EGG MONEY 

a mash of corn meal and bran which sometimes contains 
boiled vegetables. This is mixed at night if it is to be fed 
in the morning or mixed in the morning if to be fed at night. 
Two trips a day are generally made by the^feeder. In the 
morning the hens are fed mash, or given a little barley or 
wheat to scratch for, and watered. At night when the eggs 
are collected, mash or scratch feed is given, according to 
whether or not mash was fed in the morning, and in freezing 
weather the water buckets are emptied. 

Incubating and Brooding Done By Hens. 

The incubator agent has not invaded this section, or 
must have been repulsed if he has, for the old hen seems to 
be good enough for these poultrymen. Two or three 
thousand chicks are raised on several of these farms, but the 
natural method holds sway. The hens are usually set in 
a house or barn fitted up for the purpose. They are fas- 
tened on the nests and let off at a certain time each day. 
The nests are usually arranged in rows and tiers. 

The hen and her brood usually occupy a small separate 
coop of simple design and often crude. The accompanying 
photographs show instances of the very primitive construc- 
tion found here. The hen is confined to these coops. The 
chickens run during the day, but are confined during the 
night as a precaution. The small chickens are usually 
put near to the farm buildings where it is convenient to feed 
them several times a day. The method of feeding is the 
old one; mash that has cooked over night in the morning 
and broken grains three or four times during the rest of the 
day. Of late the prepared dry chick feeds are used some- 
what. 

Cracked Corn a Staple Food. 

The larger chicks are moved farther away where they 
get splendid range. Their houses are of the box-like type, 
usually about six feet square and from four to seven feet 
high. These chicks are fed mash in the morning when 
released from the coops and have hoppers of cracked corn 
always before them. Beef scraps are fed in limited quanti- 
ties, usually mixed with the mash of corn meal and bran. 



RHODE ISLAND EGG FARMING 



113 



By this method the larger chicks feed themselves with the 
exception of the morning mash. At this time they are also 
watered unless there is running water in the fields in which 
they range. 

These methods read as though devised by the king of lazy 
men. As little work as possible is put into "keeping hens, " 
but those people make up by keeping ' a large number. 
The regular routine work on a large hen plant at certain sea- 
sons of the year is done by one man before nine o'clock 
in the morning and after four in the afternoon. 

One Dollar per Hen Profit. 

These poultrymen do not expect to realize over one dollar 
a year per hen and probably not that. They believe that 
there is more money in keeping a large number in this rough 
fashion than in " fussing" with a less number. It is plain 
to be seen that if a man keeps two thousand hens and real- 
izes seventy-five cents to one dollar each, he can live 
comfortably, and these people do live comfortably. Crude 
as are the buildings for the live stock, the dwelling houses 
are neat and attractive. 




A SUMMER EGG FARM. 



A Poultry Business That Requires No Houses and Rears 

No Chickens, Yet Pays a Generous Profit 

Six Months of Every Year. 

By R. G. Williams. 

A poultry business which is continued year after year 
and yields a satisfactory profit, yet requires no permanent 
houses, yards, or expensive equipment, is a novelty to 
most poultrymen. Yet such a business is in operation at 
Amherst, Massachusetts, and the owner clears as much 
money on it during warm weather as many poultrymen 
having more expensive plants make in a full year, and has 
his winters to devote to other pursuits. 

The best of it is that the same scheme can be operated 
successfully anywhere in the temperate zone, where any 
other branch of the poultry business can be carried on suc- 
cessfully. 

The village poultryman with an acre of ground can, 
by this method, handle as many fowls during the sum- 
mer as his co-workers with more land can keep at a profit 
in the usual manner. 

The Equipment Required. 

There is absolutely nothing in the way of accommo- 
dations that can be called a poultry house. The fowls are 
quartered in yards 12 x 6 feet on the ground and two feet 
high, framed of inch pine lumber, three inches wide, and 
covered on the sides and half of the top with two inch 
mesh wire netting. Upon that part of the top not covered 
by wire, a space 6x6 extending across one end of the 
yard, is placed a large "A" coop which covers it with the 
exception of a small space. This space is provided with 
a lid, through which the attendant can reach into the coop 
for various purposes. The roost is placed level with the 



116 EGG MONEY 

top of the yard and directly under and parallel to the peak 
of the coop. 

Each yard contains a nest-box, having three or four 
compartments. This is placed under the coop and close 
against the side of the yard which is provided with a door 
through which the attendant reaches the nests to collect 
the eggs. A feed trough and water fountain, or dish, 
completes the equipment, the total cost of which need not 
exceed $2.50, labor included. If properly made and painted 
it will last several years. Some years ago cotton cloth, 
both oiled and not oiled, was tried for covering shelters, 
but it was not found to be practical and all coops are now 
made of pine. 

Each of these yards with its accompanying coop is- 
intended to accommodate ten to twelve birds and is moved 
to a fresh spot once a week. By the time that the fourth 
move has been made the spot first occupied is ready to 
be used again. 

How the Stock is Secured. 

When the price of eggs begins to drop as the weather 
opens in the spring most of the New England farmers are 
willing to dispose of their flocks at any reasonable prices. 
These fowls are what the summer poultryman wants and 
he sends men with wagon-loads of coops out to collect 
them, paying the going market price per pound. Many 
of these fowls are from late hatches of the preceding sea- 
son and make good layers during the summer months. A 
majority of them are thin in flesh, so that hens capable 
of carrying a generous amount of meat when fat, are secured 
for the price of small ones. The buyer prefers thin fleshed 
to fat specimens for the former are more readily put in lay- 
ing condition and are capable of turning a greater profit 
when dressed and sold at the end of the season. When 
the spring is so far advanced that the fowls can be com- 
fortable in these accommodations, each yard, or pen, is given 
its dozen birds and the season's work begins in earnest. 

How the Income is Obtained. 

The majority of farmers' hens are lousy and the first 
important move after the fowls are brought in is to rid. 



\ 
• A SUMMER EGG FARM 117 

them of vermin. Occasional treatment for lice during the 
summer is essential, for a lousy hen is not as productive 
nor can she be supported at the same cost for food. The 
foods and manner of feeding do not differ materially from 
those used on the majority of up-to-date poultry plants. 
Wheat, oats and a little corn are fed dry during the sum- 
mer and the proportion of corn is increased as fall ap- 
proaches. From a creamery near by curds and skim milk 




Some of the Coops and Yards Used on the Summer Egg Farm Describ- 
ed by R. G. Williams. 

are obtained which furnish sufficient animal food when the 
supply is adequate. At other times beef scraps are sup- 
plied. It is understood that fresh water, grit, charcoal and 
oyster shells are always before each flock. From these 
fowls a liberal egg yield is obtained all summer and the 
product is sorted and shipped to New Haven, Conn., where 
an average of 30 cents a dozen is received. When the 
writer visited the plant about September first, the price 
received was 32 cents. 

In the fall when the price is up and just before the 
hens begin to molt, selling is begun, and before the weather 
becomes too cold for the fowls to stay in the coops the 
last one has been shipped and the season's profits counted. 
A few are sold alive, but the bulk are dressed and shipped 
wherever the best prices can be obtained. 



118 EGG MONEY 

The fowls used in this business are of all varieties but 
Mr. Fred Fuller, the superintendent, believes that results 
would be better if only one or two varieties of pure-bred stock 
were kept. He is tempted to raise a few hundred pullets 
each year from good laying stock and keep them over for 
the experiment. He prefers White Leghorns where eggs 
are the sole object, but pins his faith to Plymouth Rocks or 
Wyandottes where the sale of the fowl is also considered. 
Mr. Fuller says that a good man can care for 2,000 or more 
fowls penned in this manner. 

The sale of eggs is expected to pay the cost of main- 
taining the fowls and plant, and the profit is derived from 
the advance in the priee received for the fowls over that 
paid for them in the spring. If the stock is properly fat- 
tened when sold the gain is considerable. 

The Possibilities of the Business. 

To any one interested in practical poultry work, this 
scheme presents attractive possibilities and to those who, 
from inclination or necessity, devote their winters to other 
pursuits but desire to follow some such line during the 
summer, it should prove both interesting and profitable. 
The capital required is less than that required to estab- 
lish almost any agricultural business that will require a 
person's entire time for its operation and pay him as good 
returns for his labor. Substantial accommodations for 
1,000 hens can be built for $250.00 or less, and the fowls 
themselves, if well bought, should not cost more than $500.00. 
The eggs should pay for the supplies almost from the start 
and also pay the care-taker a fair price for his labor. 

Prices for dressed poultry of good quality are always 
higher in the fall than in the spring and there should be 
no difficulty in increasing the average weight of the fowls 
at least one pound. If that pound of meat sold for 14 
cents the profit on 1,000 hens would be $140.00, or eighteen 
per cent for six months on money invested. 



MARKETING EGGS. 



Upon the Sale of the Products Depend the Profits — Whole= 

sale Versus Retail Markets — Advantages and Disad= 

vantages of the "Private Trade" — Selecting 

and Shipping Eggs. 

By H. A. Nourse. 

The profits of the egg business depend finally on the 
success of the owner or manager as a salesman. The 
ability to so manage the plant and handle the flock that 
eggs will be produced in liberal numbers, does not always 
assure the success of the undertaking. These eggs must be 
turned into money and although there is always a demand for 
eggs the amount of money received depends upon the time, 
place and manner of disposing of them. 

Although an extra four cents on the price of a single 
dozen of eggs is not so material, the difference counts up 
rapidly as the dozens multiply. From one hundred dozen, 
for example, the additional revenue would be $4.00 or 
enough to pay for the feed of four hens twelve months. 
Four cents a dozen, however, is not by any means the limit 
of difference between the price received by good marketing 
and that obtained by the opposite. It is by no means un- 
common for a premium of ten cents per dozen over the 
regular market quotations to be paid, month in and month 
out, for selected stock. Numerous cases are on record, also, 
of a fixed price of fifty cents per dozen being paid throughout 
the year, though eggs sold for eleven to forty cents in the 
open markets of the same city. These are, of course, 
extreme cases and these prices are obtained by catering 
to a particular trade, with a fine grade of table eggs. 

It is frequently stated that " quality," if sufficiently 
high, will always find a market at advanced prices, but this 
does not by any means hold true in the egg business. It 
is necessary first to produce a high grade of stock and then 



120 EGG MONEY 

to find a market for it where the customers are especially 
discriminating and are willing and able to pay a premium 
for indulging this discrimination. 

Catering to the Wholesale Trade. 

A very large per cent of the eggs which find their way to 
market are turned over by the producer to country store 
keepers, who forward them to the large cities or to central 
collecting points, or are forwarded by the producer to com- 
mission dealers in the trade centers. This method of dis- 
posing of the eggs, while it does not always prevent a profit 
being made by the producer, prevents him from obtaining 
a high price for his product, if the product is worth it. Yet 
this method of marketing has its advantages. The country 
storekeeper takes them from the farmer's baskets and 
whenever it is convenient for the farmer to deliver them. 
The commission dealer also takes them when it is convenient 
for the producer to forward them and returns the market 
price, less his commission and the cost of transportiom 
This manner of disposing of them involves very little labor 
or head-work on the part of the poultry raiser and that is 
doubtless the reason why that manner of selling is usually 
adopted. 

Another method of wholesaling, and one which insures 
better prices if properly conducted, is to deliver the eggs 
direct to the retail merchants, thereby saving the commission 
dealers' and storekeepers' profits. To do this successfully 
it is necessary first to locate a dealer who has the patronage 
of discriminating buyers, families who demand a good article 
and are willing to pay for it. To supply this trade satisfac- 
torily, the dealer must obtain eggs which he may depend 
upon and be able to guarantee. Such eggs can seldom be 
obtained from the regular wholesalers and he is obliged to 
look to the producer for his supply. This, however, places 
additional responsibility upon the producer; he receives high- 
er prices and he must deliver a high grade of eggs. In some 
cases, too, it is necessary that the producer be able to deliver 
a certain number at regular intervals throughout the year 
for the dealer has certain customers who require a steady 
supply in all seasons. To furnish this the producer ought 



MARKETING EGGS 121 

to have two sets of fowls, one flock of early molters and 
one of late molters. 

The choice between the methods of wholesaling depends 
largely on the time that the producer can give to the business. 
If he is prepared to cater to the higher class, the advance 
in price will usually be sufficient to a little more than pay 
for the extra labor involved. If, .on the other hand, he 
is not able to fulfill these conditions, but finds it more desir- 
able to produce the eggs as cheaply as possible and to get 
them off his hands with the least expenditure of time 
and labor, on account of other business, then the method 
of shipping to commission dealers or selling to country 
storekeepers may prove more profitable. It is true, also, 
that when a specialty is made of producing eggs during 
the season of high prices, which is during the months of 
November, December, January and February, it does not 
pay the consumer to bind himself by any bargain to fur- 
nish eggs the year around at a certain price, or to furnish 
.so many eggs each day or each week, because in the very 
season he intends to produce the greatest number the 
highest prices will be paid and the demand is such that it 
is by no means difficult to find a purchaser. 

Supplying a Retail Trade. 

The retail trade, or the business of selling direct to the 
consumer, has not yet assumed any considerable magnitude 
when considered as a part of the entire poultry business. 
The consumers in this trade may be divided into three classes; 
hotels, clubs and private families. Only the high-class 
and most expensive hotels buy high priced eggs, but they 
take them in large numbers and pay good prices. 

Several poultrymen in the state of New York have de- 
rived the main part of their revenue for years from the sale 
of eggs to the metropolis' finest hostelries. 

Clubs which are maintained by the wealthy are good buy- 
ers of eggs which they know they can rely on. Of the three 
classes, however, the best paying and probably the most 
troublesome is the family trade. In catering to hotels 
and clubs it is sometimes considered necessary to divide 
the profits with the one who does the buying, but these pur- 



122 EGG MONEY 

chasers are as a rule less difficult to contend with than the- 
cook or butler of the private family. The latter always 
have their friends among the grocer's clerks and butcher's 
boys and since many of them also derive a pecuniary benefit 
from the trade they give to certain stores and meat shops, 
they are always glad to turn any cause for dissatisfaction 
toward the poultryman and to shield his competitors. 
The trade of the individual family at best is not sufficient 
to warrant the egg man in paying these servants a sum suffi- 
cient to procure their good will. Of course these undesirable 
influences are not always to be contended with and in spite 
of those that exist poultrymen are doing a lucrative business 
with hotels, clubs and families, glad to tolerate the petty 
dissatisfactions while pocketing the additional profits. 

The first two classes are rather easier to cater to since 
eggs are, delivered in greater numbers, one club or hotel 
often taking all the producer has, and most of the eggs 
are shipped by express from consignor to consignee. 

The trade of each family is small — comparatively. A 
few dozen here and a few dozen there require the services 
of a man and team for half a day, two, three or more times 
each week. Occasionally the egg farmer finds it ad visa- 
able to take orders on certain days of each week and deliver 
on the day following. The prices obtained are as a rule 
well above the figures quoted in the retail stores and markets. 
As we stated before, fifty cents per dozen is frequently paid 
the year around and at this price the poultryman can well 
afford to shoulder considerable extra expense and trouble. 

We have described the various methods of disposing of 
the egg farmer's product and endeavored to explain the 
advantages and disadvantages of each in such a way that 
the reader, after investigating the conditions surrounding 
him, will be prepared to decide intelligently which method 
will prove most satisfactory and profitable for him to 
adopt. 

What High Quality Means. 

To the average person a good egg means a fresh egg and 
vice versa, yet it is possible for an egg to be fresh, i, e., 
recently laid, and still be of poor quality. Before an egg 



MARKETING EGGS 123 

is entitled to classification as A 1 it must be uniform in 
shape, size and color with its mates, clean, and with its 
contents good. Uniformity, cleanliness, size, shape and 
color are attributes which assist in its sale by pleasing the 
eye. The contents of the shell, however, is what people 
pay the price for and it varies considerably. 

An egg less than twenty-four hours old may not be very 




Cases of Strictly Fresh Eggs Ready to be Forwarded to Commission 
Houses, Retailers, Hotels or Clubs. 

valuable as food. Its yoke may be unstable and pale in 
color, the white may be watery. In the perfect egg, the 
yoke is comparatively firm within its sack and the white 
sets solidly around it, both filling the shell very nearly 
full, leaving the air cell at the large end of the egg decidedly 
small. This is the product of the healthy hen, well fed 
and kept in clean quarters. 

As good feeding (we mean correct feeding) and clean 
quarters are required for the health of the hen, the entire 
matter depends on feeding and care, subjects which have 
been fully treated in previous chapters. Uniformity in 



124 EGG MONEY 

shape, size and color is obtained by building a strain of fowls 
with this end in view. Cleanliness is simply a matter of 
keeping the nests where the eggs are laid thoroughly clean. 
Washed eggs are not to be rated as A 1. Washing destroys 
the fresh appearance of the shell and, by removing a certain 
glutinous substance from the outside of the shell, detracts 
from its keeping qualities. 

Grading and Shipping. 

Whether eggs are marketed wholesale or retail, through 
commission merchants or to hotels or private families, the 
rules for selecting, grading and shipping have the same 
application. Understanding that all the eggs are fresh, 
as they should be when they leave the plant of the producer, 
the first thing to do is to sort them according to size and 
color. Small eggs and extremely large ones should be count- 
ed out and white eggs should be separated from brown ones. 
This will give us four divisions; white eggs that are off in size 
and brown eggs that are off in size, uniform white eggs and 
uniform brown eggs. The latter two divisions are the ones 
to be sold under the producer's mark and guarantee. The 
others must be sold as "seconds" and will not suit the more 
particular trade. 

As an extra precaution some shippers candle all eggs 
before sending them out, even when there seems to be no 
chance for any egg to be over twenty-four hours old. This 
is to guard against the distribution of any eggs which are not 
correct as to contents, for example those that may not be 
of the proper consistency, those not full, or those with 
blood spots. This candling, or testing, is done only when 
the eggs are to be forwarded to a high-class customer. Con- 
signments forwarded to commission merchants or to retail 
establishments usually go forward in ordinary egg cases 
which are not expensive, though occasionally the shipper 
uses more substantial and attractive cases bearing 
his name. These are returned to him when empty, the ex- 
press companies returning them free or charging him a 
nominal fee. 

Eggs forwarded to hotels or clubs usually go forward in 
better cases. Sometimes in addition they are packed in 



MARKETING EGGS 125 

dozen lots in pasteboard boxes which are inclosed in wooden 
cases of special design. The object of these special cases is 
to deliver the eggs in good and attractive condition when- 
ever a higher price may be obtained by so doing. It is 
not our intention to describe the different cases in use, for 
most of them are for sale by poultry supply dealers and 
descriptions may be found in their catalogues. 

Taken as a whole, the business of grading and shipping 




Winter Quarters for a Farm Flock, Built Almost Entirely of Straw, 
Baled or Loose. 



consists principally in so grading the stock that it shall 
be most attractive and thereby command the highest price, 
and in so shipping it that it will arrive safely, secure from 
substitution and in the sort of cases that will serve to recom- 
mend the quality of the contents. These are matters which 
cannot be profitably neglected. Careless sorting or grad- 
ing is always accompanied by a loss in price, for a mixed 
lot of eggs usually takes the price of the lowest grade repre- 
sented. Carelessness in shipping, as well as the use of 
unattractive cases, will not serve as a recommendation of 
the eggs nor of the shipper as a man to do business with. 



ADVERTISING TABLE EGGS. 



The Producers, Who Hitherto Have Left Advertising to the 

Retailers, Are Beginning to Find That 

Publicity Pays. 



By H. A. Nourse. 

Until very recently the only desirable publicity that 
market eggs received was in the more or less spacious ad- 
vertising of the retail grocer, who seemed prone to regard 
all eggs as " fresh" until they were proven otherwise. Now 
the producer, whether he is a village poultryman or an 
exclusive egg farmer, is beginning to take the egg adver- 
tising in his own hands. This is noticeable in the case of 
those producers who retail their eggs direct to the consumer, 
or who furnish retail dealers with eggs branded with their 
name and guarantee. 

The Manner of Advertising. 

It may be supposed that this advertising would be done 
in the papers circulating in the. towns and cities where 
the producer's product is to be sold; but it seems that only a 
small part of the advertising is placed in periodicals. The 
greater part of it is done by means of circulars. ^ The 
advertiser secures a list of persons whom he considers most 
likely to become customers and mails them his card or circu- 
lars, rather than take the chance of their seeing his ad in 
the crowded columns of the newspaper and rather than pay 
to have his ad placed before the people of the town as a 
whole, 95 per cent of whom he is positive would never be 
induced to pay an extra price for eggs of the better quality. 
That extra price is what the advertiser is after. 

Points to Bring Out. 

To sell his product at five, ten or more cents a dozen in 
excess of the price named for so-called fresh eggs by the 



ADVERTISING TABLE EGGS 127 

average retailer, the producer must convince the prospec- 
tive buyer that the eggs he is prepared to furnish are really 
worth the price asked for them. In other words the con- 
sumer must be educated. He must be taught that a fresh 
egg is not simply an egg that is not stale, but one that has 
been laid within forty-eight hours before it reached his 
kitchen. He must be told that all fresh eggs are not neces- 
sarily of good quality. He must be influenced to prefer 
large eggs to small ones and clean ones to the other kind, 
since large ones will go farther when used for cooking and 
clean ones are more healthful. 

The bright advertiser knows that these things are true and 
makes the most of them. He guarantees that all eggs shall 
be delivered within a certain number of hours after they are 
collected from the nests. He guarantees that the food 
given the hens and the conditions surrounding them are 
healthful and calculated to enable them to produce eggs of 
good body and fine flavor. He assures the purchaser that 
they will weigh so much to the dozen and that they are clean 
always, because their surroundings are sanitary. Occasion- 
ally he calls attention to the fact that the ordinary egg of 
commerce is a decided uncertainty and that no one knows 
under what conditions it was produced or what sort of food 
the fowl that produced it consumed. All these are points 
which appeal to the lover of good eggs who can afford to 
encourage a fastidious taste. These points are usually 
brought out in circulars, but the advertiser in the local papers 
cannot go so much into the small points. 

When Newspaper Space is Used. 

The poultryman who produces eggs in comparatively 
large numbers and turns them over to retailers to sell for 
him after marking them with his name and protecting 
them with his guaranty, usually prefers to do his advertis- 
ing in the newspapers. He usually runs a card once or 
twice a week in the daily papers or in each issue of the week- 
lies. In this space he calls attention to the fact that eggs 
bearing his trade mark and dated (either on the egg itself 
or on the carton in which it is delivered) are for sale by cer- 
tain dealers, and are guaranteed by him to be of high quality. 



128 



EGG MONEY 



Sometimes instead of running a separate advertisement, 
the producer pays his retailers a certain amount to insert 
certain copy regarding his eggs in their ads at certain inter- 
vals. 

Does Advertising Pay? 

Whether or not this pays, and how well it pays, depends 
upon how well the advertising is done and how well the adver- 
tiser is prepared to supply the trade he gains with the eggs 
he advertises. 

In almost any large town or city, there are people who 
appreciate and can afford to pay for eggs that, are above the 
average in quality, and, as a rule, it is only necessary to get 
in touch with these people and prove to them that you have 
that which they are willing to pay for, to work up a consider- 
able trade. If one sells only a limited number of dozens 
each week an increase of ten cents per dozen will pay for 
quite a little advertising, and a customer once gained and 
properly treated, is usually kept. 




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0002 851 0™ 8 



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pH 8.5 



